AFP UK

Coral bleaching has affected 98 percent of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef since 1998, leaving just a fraction of the world’s largest reef system untouched, according to a study published Friday.

The paper in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology found that just two percent of the vast underwater ecosystem had escaped impacts since the first mass coral bleaching event in 1998 — then the world’s hottest year ever, a record that has repeatedly been broken as climate change accelerates.

Lead author Terry Hughes, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, said the frequency, intensity and scale of climate-fuelled marine heatwaves that cause coral bleaching are increasing.

“Five bouts of mass bleaching since 1998 have turned the Great Barrier Reef into a checkerboard of reefs with very different recent histories, ranging from two percent of reefs that have escaped bleaching altogether, to 80 percent that have now bleached severely at least once since 2016,” he said.

Bleaching occurs when healthy corals become stressed by spikes in ocean temperatures, causing them to expel algae living in their tissues which drains them of their vibrant colours.

The Great Barrier Reef has suffered three mass bleaching events during heatwaves in 2016, 2017 and 2020, leaving many affected corals struggling to survive.

Government scientists said in July that corals have shown some signs of recovery since the last bleaching but admit the long-term outlook for the 2,300-kilometre-long (1,400-mile-long) ecosystem is “very poor”.

The reef is also susceptible to harm from cyclones and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish, which eat the coral, with both factors becoming more damaging due to climate change.

The research found corals that had previously been exposed to heatwaves were less susceptible to heat stress, but co-author Sean Connolly, from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, warned more frequent and severe bleaching would reduce the reef’s resilience.

“Corals still need time to recover before another round of heat stress so they can make babies that will disperse, settle and recover the depleted parts of the reef,” he said.

“Action to curb climate change is crucial.”

The findings come during a landmark United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, where Australia committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but failed to announce a more ambitious 2030 target.

One of the world’s biggest exporters of coal and gas, Australia’s economy is heavily reliant on fossil fuels and its conservative government has been reluctant to kick the country’s addiction.

A French astronaut reported back on Earth’s climate change damage as seen from space on Thursday, calling it a “sad sight” in a conversation with President Emmanuel Macron.

Thomas Pesquet, on his second tour at the International Space Station (ISS) orbiting the planet, told Macron by video link that the destructive impact of human activity was becoming more and more visible, even from 400 kilometres (250 miles) away.

“Unfortunately that is the case, Mister President,” Pesquet said. “Through the portholes of the space station, we distinctly see Earth’s fragility,” he said. “We see the damaging effects of human activity, pollution of rivers and air pollution.”

He said the astronauts at the station had observed “entire regions burning, like in Canada. We saw California covered in a cloud of smoke, we saw the flames with our naked eyes,” he said.

Similar devastation could be seen in Greece and southern France, the pilot said, also describing “the sad sight of repeated tropical storms”.

Asked by Macron whether things had changed since Pesquet’s first mission in 2016, the astronaut said: “Yes, the weather phenomena are accelerating at an alarming rate.”

Visibly struck by that observation, Macron remained silent for a moment, and then said: “We must speed up our commitments and their implementation much more. That is the objective of the COP26,” he said, referring to the ongoing UN-sponsored climate conference.

Pesquet, an astronaut for the European Space Agency, is the current ISS commander.

He is to return to Earth in the coming days following a second six-month stint at the station, five years after his first ISS tour.

Spain’s environment ministry on Thursday unveiled a roadmap for regenerating the stricken Mar Menor, one of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoons that is slowly dying from agricultural pollution. 

The plan would curb some harmful agricultural practices blamed for pushing the lagoon in southeastern Spain to what ecologists have described as “the brink of ecological collapse”.

“The environmental crisis of the Mar Menor is unsustainable, the damage must be stopped immediately,” Environment Minister Teresa Ribera said as she unveiled the 382-million-euro ($440-million) investment plan on a visit to the area. 

In August, millions of dead fish and crustaceans began washing up on the lagoon’s shores, scenes that experts have repeatedly blamed on agricultural pollution. 

They say the sea creatures died due to a lack of oxygen caused by hundreds of tonnes of fertiliser nitrates leaking into the water, triggering a phenomenon called eutrophication which collapses aquatic ecosystems.

The ministry’s plan for 2022-26 includes short- and medium-term steps to slash the contaminants entering the lagoon, ending illegal irrigation practices and revitalising the Mar Menor’s shoreline.

It outlines several environmental regeneration projects to support biodiversity in and around the lagoon, including the creation of a 1.5-kilometre (one mile) buffer zone along the Mar Menor’s shores.

Earlier this year, Ribera accused regional authorities of turning a blind eye to farming irregularities in the Campo de Cartagena, an intensively farmed area surrounding the lagoon.

The plan involves cracking down on illegal irrigation and cutting off supplies to farms without irrigation rights, reviewing permits for wastewater disposal and monitoring livestock farms. 

Earlier this month, ecologists submitted a formal complaint to the EU over Spain’s “continued failure” to protect the Mar Menor, urging the European Commission to take “immediate action”. 

Although the lagoon is protected under various EU directives and the UN environment programme, they said Spain has failed to comply with its legal obligations, taking “only superficial steps” to safeguard the Mar Menor from damaging agricultural practices.

Fossils found deep in a South African cave formed part of a hominid child’s skull, apparently left on an alcove by fellow members of her species 250,000 years ago, scientists said Thursday.

The latest find adds to the riddle surrounding Homo naledi — a species of Stone Age hominids discovered less than a decade ago in a region called the Cradle of Humankind, named after the stunning fossils unearthed there.

“The real mystery about this child is why she found where she was,” said Lee Berger, the scientist who led the project. 

“Something amazing was going on in this cave 200,000-300,000 years ago.

Although the researchers refer to the child as “her”, they have not yet determined whether it was a boy or girl.

Researchers rarely find fossilised remains of children, because their bones are too thin and fragile to survive over aeons. 

The child was probably only four to six years old when it died, with baby teeth intact and adult teeth starting to emerge.

Nearly 2,000 fossils have been found in the caves, which scientists have pieced together into partial skeletons of more than two dozen individuals.

The initial discovery revealed in 2015 helped complicate our understanding of human evolution, by showing that Homo sapiens probably lived alongside other species of hominin — the name for hominids that include anatomically modern man.

The newly found 28 skull fragments and six teeth were found even deeper in the cave complex, 12 meters (40 feet) away from the main find, through tiny crevices that required the explorers to literally squeeze between the rocky walls.

– ‘Superman crawl’ – 

One section of the passage required explorers lie flat and pull themselves through with their hands stretched out ahead in a “Superman crawl”, and then climb over a ridge dubbed the Dragon’s Back, caver Mathabela Tsikoane told AFP.

“For a person that doesn’t cave, it’s very, very difficult,” he said. “You have to literally push yourself through.”

Because of its distance from the other finds, the investigators nicknamed the child Leti, after a seTswana word “letimela” meaning “the lost one.” 

But for Homo naledi, the journey into the cave might have been much easier, as they were smaller than modern humans. 

Their bodies also appeared well adapted to climbing, said Tebego Makhubela, one of the scientists on the project.

These remains are the first of a child. No other bones were found, and the skull showed no signs of damage — as from a carnivore’s attack.

Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, the self-proclaimed Cradle of Humankind consists of a complex of limestone caves about 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Johannesburg. The latest find was made about 30 metres (100 feet) below ground). 

– Death ritual? –

The researchers speculate that other members of the species may have set the skull there, for reasons that could be linked to rituals around the dead, Berger said. 

He has proposed such a line of thinking for explaining the entire Homo naledi site, as a site for ritual burials.

If further evidence supports that theory, it would mark a dramatic rethinking about the human odyssey. 

Until now, the earliest known hominid rituals associated with death date back to 50,000-100,000 years ago. 

But the latest find could push evidence for this behaviour — a token of grief and possibly belief — back to a quarter of a million years ago.

The discovery was published in two papers in the journal PaleoAnthropology, with 21 researchers from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand and 13 other institutions around the world.

Indonesia on Thursday questioned the terms of a deal to end deforestation by 2030 signed by more than 100 countries, including the Southeast Asian archipelago, which is home to the world’s third-biggest rainforest.

The nations agreed on the multi-billion-dollar plan at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow this week to stop cutting down trees on an industrial scale in under a decade.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the agreement was pivotal to the overarching goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius in a bid to slow global warming.

But two senior Indonesian politicians on Thursday threw Jakarta’s participation into question, with one saying the deal did not call for a complete end to deforestation, while another said it could not halt President Joko Widodo’s development goals.

Indonesia’s deputy foreign affairs minister Mahendra Siregar said on Twitter that describing the agreement as a zero-deforestation pledge was “false and misleading”.

Siti Nurbaya Bakar, Indonesia’s environment minister who attended the climate conference in Scotland, took to social media to declare that “forcing Indonesia to zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair”. 

She added that there were multiple ways to define deforestation, and that any agreement could not halt economic growth. 

“The massive development of President Jokowi’s era must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation,” she said, referring to Widodo by his nickname.

“Indonesia’s natural wealth, including forests, must be managed for its use according to sustainable principles, besides being fair, of course,” she added.

Although its rate of deforestation has slowed markedly since 2015, Indonesia’s vast forests are still shrinking.

According to Global Forest Watch, Indonesia in 2001 had 93.8 million hectares (230 million acres) of primary forest — ancient forests which have largely not been disturbed by human activity — an area about the size of Egypt.

By 2020, that area had decreased by about 10 percent.

Global CO2 emissions mainly caused by burning fossil fuels are set to rebound in 2021 to levels seen before the Covid pandemic, according to an assessment published Thursday that served as a “reality check” to vague decarbonisation pledges at a UN climate summit.

Overall, CO2 pollution this year will be just shy of the record set in 2019, according to the annual report from the Global Carbon Project consortium, released as nearly 200 nations at the COP26 climate summit confront the threat of catastrophic warming.

Emissions from gas and highly polluting coal will rise this year by more than they dropped in 2020, when shutdowns to slow the spread of the pandemic caused economies to slow dramatically. 

Capping the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — as per the Paris Agreement — would limit mortality and damage, but achieving that goal would require slashing carbon emissions nearly in half by 2030 and to net zero by 2050, the UN’s climate science authority warned. 

“This report is a reality check,” co-author Corrine Le Quere, a professor of climate change science at Britain’s University of East Anglia, told AFP. 

“It shows what’s happening in the real world while we are here in Glasgow talking about tackling climate change.”

– Waiting for the peak –

The new report is bad news for the 13-day COP26 meeting, where a diplomatic spat saw the United States accuse China and Russia of failing to step up their ambitions.

China will account for 31 percent of global emissions this year after its economy accelerated out of the economic lull ahead of others.

Carbon pollution from oil remains well below 2019 levels, but could surge as the transport and aviation sectors recover from pandemic disruption, said the study in the journal Earth System Science Data.

Taken together, the findings mean that future C02 emissions could eclipse the 40-billion tonne record set in 2019, which some have predicted — and many hoped — would be a peak.

“We cannot rule out more overall growth of emissions in 2022 as the transport sector continues to recover,” Le Quere said. “We are bound to have ups and downs over the next few years.”

The latest figures are in line with a recent International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that emissions from energy would hit an all-time high in 2023, “with no clear peak in sight”.

“Perhaps we will start talking about peak emissions in 2023 or 2024,” said Glen Peters, research director at the Centre for International Climate Research in Oslo and a co-author of the report.

– China surge –

Looking at the national level, the report found a return to pre-Covid patterns among the world top four carbon polluters, which account for 60 percent of global CO2 emissions.

In China — which has pledged to peak its emissions by 2030, and reach net-zero by 2060 — economic growth spurred by government incentives will see emissions grow 5.5 percent this year compared with 2019, the last year not affected by Covid.  

“The rebound in China was robust,” said Peters. “It looks like China is in a phase of strong growth again.”

India, the world’s other emerging giant, is on track for a similar percentage increase in carbon pollution, and will account for seven percent of the total this year.

Emissions in the US and EU will drop 3.7 and 4.2 percent this year respectively and their share of global emissions will stand at 14 and 7 percent.

The wild card that could determine how quickly the world can finally bend the emissions downward is coal, the report made clear.

“Mostly it’s about coal now,” said Le Quere. “This is where the big uncertainties are.”

Very little of the trillions of dollars channelled to post-pandemic recovery was earmarked for green development, a trend that is continuing, she said.

– ‘It is possible’ –

“Economic incentives now are about driving consumption, and this is really pushing industry, production and coal,” said Le Quere.   

Worldwide, decarbonisation — mainly switching from fossil fuels to renewable — continues to be outpaced by the demand for energy.

But the report highlighted some positive signs. 

Twenty-three countries accounting for a quarter of global emissions over the last decade — including the US, Japan, Germany, France and Britain — enjoyed strong economic growth alongside significant declines in emissions. 

But the finding makes clear how daunting the Paris Agreement goals are.

Peter Norton, director of International Institute for Environment and Development, said the report showed that on current emissions levels the world would emit enough to breach the 1.5C goal within 11 years.

“That is in many ways worse than it sounds,” he said on Twitter.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador Wednesday slammed participants in a major UN climate summit for their “hypocrisy,” accusing them of failing to address the root causes of the crisis and pointing to their use of private jets.

The world’s top business and political figures are gathered in Glasgow this week for COP26, which is aimed at forging an ambitious new climate agreement.

But Mexico’s leftist leader — also known as AMLO — dismissively compared the summit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, known for its eye-watering prices and elite chin-wagging.

“These summits resemble those in Davos,” said Lopez Obrador — among the heads of state who chose not to attend COP26 — describing WEF attendees as “technocrats and neoliberals.”

The world’s most powerful countries “increase their fuel production, at the same time that they hold summits for the protection of the environment,” he said. “And then they arrive in private planes.”

“Enough hypocrisy and fad. We must fight the massive monstrous inequality that exists in the world, that’s what I will tell the UN.”

Lopez Obrador, who has made only a handful of foreign trips since taking office in 2018, will travel to New York next week as Mexico takes over the presidency of the UN Security Council.

“If we want to protect the environment, we must make decisions, act, and not just talk,” he said, hailing major oil producer Mexico’s decision to invest $1.3 billion a year in reforestation.

The program — known as “Sowing Life” — aims to create 15,000 jobs planting a billion trees across Mexico’s 32 states.

The Gardanne smokestack is the highest in France at 295 metres (975 feet) but the mood at the power station beneath the once-proud chimney has reached an all-time low.

Gardanne is one of the last remaining French coal-fired stations. Ever since the government announced the closure of its coal plants three years ago to help meet climate goals, anger and despair has spread across this community of 20,000, half an hour’s drive northeast of Marseille.

Many have lost their jobs, and they are furious with the government, which they say is not helping them find a place in a post-coal future.

“What good is the ecological transition if it leads to mass unemployment?” asked Nadir Hadjali, boss of the hard-left CGT union at the power plant that went into operation in the 1950s.

– ‘Fighting for our jobs’ –

France has vowed to shut three of its four remaining coal plants by next year, and the last one in 2024 as it moves towards its goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

China, India and some European countries still rely heavily on coal for electricity, but France’s dependence on the highly polluting fossil fuel has been declining for decades, with nuclear power accounting for more than two-thirds of its electricity mix.

Still, about 1,400 jobs are — directly or indirectly — threatened by the last French closures, according to the environment ministry, including 220 at Gardanne, and the nearby Fos-sur-Mer port which handles coal imports for the plant.

“We’re fighting for our jobs, the power station will live,” said a banner put up at the site’s entrance by workers. But that wish has so far proved elusive.

When coal was definitively banned from the Gardanne plant in 2018, there was a plan to turn it into a biomass installation, generating power by burning wood pellets.

The experiment — already criticised by environmental groups — was suspended after just a month due to a conflict between management and workers over the social conditions of the transition.

Last month, the standoff reached a fever pitch when management accused the union of being behind what it said was an illegal occupation of the site by 80 hooded people.

The CGT insisted all it had done was “protect” the station, which it said had become unsafe since 98 of its 154 jobs were axed.

Site owners GazelEnergie — a subsidiary of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s energy company EPH — in September presented a plan to turn it into a production site for green hydrogen and renewable synthetic fuels, creating 50 new jobs.

It has not given a timetable for the project, called “Hynovera”, but it has the backing of the central government in Paris and some local politicians.

Complementing biomass production, it would require an investment of 400 million euros ($460 million).

The CGT’s Hadjali, who has worked here for 22 years, said his union was “not against this or any other project, but we want to be certain that existing staff at the site will be offered those jobs”.

– ‘Eternal illusions’ –

Workers have come up with an alternative plan, consisting of building a plant for converting methane and hydrogen into gas, which they say would require 100 million euros of investment over two years.

But the local member of parliament, Francois-Michel Lambert of the opposition Liberte Et Territoires party, poured cold water on both ideas, calling them “eternal illusions”.

Lambert said that “the conversion will not take any of these forms”.

Biomass was not meeting stricter environmental norms, hydrogen production was already being handled elsewhere and as for the workers’ plan, Lambert said “the government doesn’t want to invest the money”.

Instead, the deputy said, the plant should be shut down and much-needed social housing built there instead.

Exhausted by the wait and the fight, some workers have walked away from the station.

One of them, who declined to be identified, told AFP that he had found a job at a green energy firm. However, he now has to drive 25 kilometres (15 miles) to work, with spiking fuel prices eating into his monthly pre-tax pay increase of 600 euros ($695).

While local politicians hold meeting after meeting in the hope of coming up with an idea for the plant, the workers blame President Emmanuel Macron’s government for closing the plant without offering them a viable alternative.

“They never thought this through,” said union boss Hadjali.

Bernardo Guarachi’s eyes light up as he reminisces about the glory days of Chacaltaya — once the highest ski resort in the world but now a crumbling relic to climate change in the Bolivian Andes.

“Today, it’s a cemetery,” said Guarachi, pointing to the rusted poles and cables from the old chair lifts.

His eyes scan the 400-meter slope he once shot down at speed on a blanket of snow, now covered only in rocks.

“It used to be full of skiers on Saturdays and Sundays,” said the mountaineer.

Rising 5,300-meters above sea level, Chacaltaya was a popular family weekend retreat for inhabitants of La Paz, just 30 kilometers away.

By 1998, the Chacaltaya glacier had been reduced to just seven percent of its size in 1940, while it disappeared entirely in 2009.

Bolivia has lost around half of its glaciers in the last 50 years and experts say things will get worse as global warming continues.

According to the Andean Glaciers and Waters Atlas, published in 2018 by UNESCO and the Norwegian foundation GRID-Arendal, “the expected warming will provoke the loss of 95 percent of the permafrost in Bolivia by 2050,” including the loss of almost all its glaciers.

– Disappearing glaciers –

It is a familiar theme for Edson Ramirez, a glaciologist at the Mayor de San Andres University who conducted a comprehensive study on the impact of climate change on the Bolivian Andes.

He was also the first person to conduct an inventory of Bolivia’s glaciers, including documenting their disappearance.

“All the similar glaciers to Chacaltaya … are suffering the same process of melting, of death,” said Ramirez.

At the end of the 1990s Ramirez and other scientists measured the thickest part of the glacier: 15 meters.

“We knew it could disappear in the next 15 years,” he said.

It took only 11 years.

The glaciers are fed by an accumulation of snow but “the planet’s temperature has risen to a point where we already cannot have snow in these places any more,” said Ramirez.

According to some predictions, the temperature in the Andes could rise by two to five degrees Celsius by the end of the 21st century.

“We need to take urgent action between all countries to lower the planet’s temperature,” said Ramirez, whose challenge is to preserve what remains of Bolivia’s glaciers.

– Money over nature –

Guarachi, 67, looks off into the distance towards El Alto, the large satellite town overlooking La Paz, and the cloud of smog hanging over both.

“Man has changed a lot for one aim, which is to earn money, lots of money, and he has forgotten about nature (and) the mountains,” said Guarachi.

Bolivia is 80th out of 181 countries in terms of CO2 emissions. 

Earlier this year, the South American country of 11 million submitted a proposal to the United Nations that would see the worst offenders increase by “five to 10 times” their financing for the worst affected countries, as well as greater efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

But Ramirez says that his country cannot be excused of blame, pointing to the forest fires that every year devastate thousands of hectares of the Amazon basin to clear the land for agriculture.

“The effects of the fires also influence the state of the glaciers,” said Ramirez, explaining that the carbon produced is deposited on the ice and accelerates the melting process by reducing the ability of snow and ice to reflect sunlight.

– Water threat –

The disappearance of the glaciers could impact the water supply for millions of Bolivians.

During periods of drought, the ice melt would provide up to 85 percent of La Paz’s water needs. Several times in the last five years its residents have been forced to ration water.

Farmers on the Altiplano, above La Paz, have also felt the effects.

Offerings and prayers to Mother Earth — a traditional deity — have surged.

Unaffected by the altitude, Guarachi strolls around the ruins of the Chacaltaya resort that was built in the 1930s.

“We have to change our mentality … because I’d rather have water than a lot of money. You could have a lot of money but you won’t be able to buy water if the glaciers disappear,” he said.

For biologist Karina Apaza, the environment used to be seen as “an impediment to economic growth, but if you impact it, who are you impacting? Yourself.”

The Gardanne smokestack is the highest in France at 295 metres (975 feet) but the mood at the power station beneath the once-proud chimney has reached an all-time low.

Gardanne is one of the last remaining French coal-fired stations. Ever since the government announced the closure of its coal plants three years ago to help meet climate goals, anger and despair has spread across this community of 20,000, half an hour’s drive northeast of Marseille.

Many have lost their jobs, and they are furious with the government, which they say is not helping them find a place in a post-coal future.

“What good is the ecological transition if it leads to mass unemployment?” asked Nadir Hadjali, boss of the hard-left CGT union at the power plant that went into operation in the 1950s.

– ‘Fighting for our jobs’ –

France has vowed to shut three of its four remaining coal plants by next year, and the last one in 2024 as it moves towards its goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

China, India and some European countries still rely heavily on coal for electricity, but France’s dependence on the highly polluting fossil fuel has been declining for decades, with nuclear power accounting for more than two-thirds of its electricity mix.

Still, about 1,400 jobs are — directly or indirectly — threatened by the last French closures, according to the environment ministry, including 220 at Gardanne, and the nearby Fos-sur-Mer port which handles coal imports for the plant.

“We’re fighting for our jobs, the power station will live,” said a banner put up at the site’s entrance by workers. But that wish has so far proved elusive.

When coal was definitively banned from the Gardanne plant in 2018, there was a plan to turn it into a biomass installation, generating power by burning wood pellets.

The experiment — already criticised by environmental groups — was suspended after just a month due to a conflict between management and workers over the social conditions of the transition.

Last month, the standoff reached a fever pitch when management accused the union of being behind what it said was an illegal occupation of the site by 80 hooded people.

The CGT insisted all it had done was “protect” the station, which it said had become unsafe since 98 of its 154 jobs were axed.

Site owners GazelEnergie — a subsidiary of Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s energy company EPH — in September presented a plan to turn it into a production site for green hydrogen and renewable synthetic fuels, creating 50 new jobs.

It has not given a timetable for the project, called “Hynovera”, but it has the backing of the central government in Paris and some local politicians.

Complementing biomass production, it would require an investment of 400 million euros ($460 million).

The CGT’s Hadjali, who has worked here for 22 years, said his union was “not against this or any other project, but we want to be certain that existing staff at the site will be offered those jobs”.

– ‘Eternal illusions’ –

Workers have come up with an alternative plan, consisting of building a plant for converting methane and hydrogen into gas, which they say would require 100 million euros of investment over two years.

But the local member of parliament, Francois-Michel Lambert of the opposition Liberte Et Territoires party, poured cold water on both ideas, calling them “eternal illusions”.

Lambert said that “the conversion will not take any of these forms”.

Biomass was not meeting stricter environmental norms, hydrogen production was already being handled elsewhere and as for the workers’ plan, Lambert said “the government doesn’t want to invest the money”.

Instead, the deputy said, the plant should be shut down and much-needed social housing built there instead.

Exhausted by the wait and the fight, some workers have walked away from the station.

One of them, who declined to be identified, told AFP that he had found a job at a green energy firm. However, he now has to drive 25 kilometres (15 miles) to work, with spiking fuel prices eating into his monthly pre-tax pay increase of 600 euros ($695).

While local politicians hold meeting after meeting in the hope of coming up with an idea for the plant, the workers blame President Emmanuel Macron’s government for closing the plant without offering them a viable alternative.

“They never thought this through,” said union boss Hadjali.