AFP UK

Air pollution emitted by humans contributed to 3.3 million deaths in 2020, according to recent research

Deadlier than Covid, or even rivalling cancer? Researchers have been increasingly attempting to calculate the effect climate change will have on health if the world does not act quickly to reduce carbon emissions.

The World Health Organization, which says climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, has called for the issue to be “front and centre” in negotiations at the COP27 summit being held in Egypt.

But quantifying the overall impact is an extremely complicated task, experts told AFP, because global warming affects health in many different ways, from the immediate dangers of rising heat and extreme weather to longer-term food and water shortages, air pollution and disease.

The WHO estimates that climate change will cause 250,000 extra deaths a year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress between 2030 and 2050.

That is widely thought to be a “massively conservative estimate” of the true toll, partly because it only comes from four sources, said Jess Beagley, policy lead at the NGO Global Climate and Health Alliance.

“Climate change is a threat multiplier,” she told AFP.

“As climate change worsens, we’re going to see the biggest threats to human health increase.”

Nearly 70 percent of all deaths worldwide are from diseases that could be made worse by global warming, according to a report this year from the IPCC, the United Nations’ panel of climate experts.

– 4.2 million more deaths? –

Another major health threat comes from food shortages. Nearly 100 million additional people faced severe food insecurity in 2020 compared to 1981-2010, according to a report last month from The Lancet Countdown, a leading effort to quantify climate change’s impact on health.

Extreme drought has increased by nearly a third over the last 50 years, it added, putting hundreds of millions at risk of lacking access to fresh water.

And air pollution contributed to 3.3 million deaths in 2020, 1.2 million of which were directly related to fossil fuel emissions, the report found.

Researchers have also been sounding the alarm that warmer temperatures are pushing virus-carrying animals like mosquitoes into new areas, increasing the spread of existing diseases — and raising the risk of new ones jumping across to humans.

The likelihood of dengue transmission rose by 12 percent over the last 50 years, while warming temperatures extended malaria season in parts of Africa by 14 percent, the Lancet Countdown report said.

Projecting into the future, a new platform launched last week by the United Nations Development Programme and the Climate Impact Lab warned that global warming could become deadlier than cancer in some parts of the world.

Under the modelling research’s worst-case scenario in which fossil fuel emissions are not rapidly scaled back, climate change could cause death rates to increase by 53 deaths per 100,000 people worldwide by 2100 — around double the current rate for lung cancer.

For the current global population, that would mean 4.2 million additional deaths a year, more than the official toll from Covid-19 in 2021.

– ‘Exacerbate inequality’ –

Climate Impact Lab’s Hannah Hess told AFP that the projections were probably conservative because they compared previous data on mortality and weather with possible future temperatures, so did not include potential threats such as vector-borne diseases.

The platform also gave specific local projections for more than 24,000 regions worldwide. Under the worst-case scenario, it found that in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, climate change-related deaths could double those from all cancers by 2100.

The study did project that death rates would fall in some northern, mostly wealthy nations, where fewer cold spells could lead to a net improvement in health.

This “speaks even more to the potential of climate change to exacerbate inequality”, she added.

There have been calls to include such additional deaths into the “social cost of carbon”, the price put on the harm attributable to a tonne of CO2.

Research published in September estimated that the current price of $51 per metric tonne was nearly four times too low, in part because it underestimated the effect of extra deaths.

The global charity Wellcome Trust is among those funding further research on global warming’s impact on health, according to its climate and health director Alan Dangour.

Dangour told AFP that soon “climate change will influence every aspect of public health”.

“If we don’t embed climate change into our thinking, we’ve completely missed the point.”

Finnish loggers are rushing to cut before new EU rules may enter into force

Standing next to a freshly-cut clearing the size of seven football fields, Finnish forest engineer Matti Jappila pointed to growth rings in an up to 300-year-old tree stump.

“I have started to systematically carry out these loggings, sort of in advance,” he said.

Like many other Finns, Jappila fears that the EU’s upcoming biodiversity strategy, which aims to protect 30 percent of the EU’s land area, will make his forestry livelihood “completely unprofitable”.

The loud noise of a clearing saw filled the thick boreal forest of spruce and birch, as Jappila prepared another part of his estate to be cut down in December — before the EU can force him to protect it.

“It’s better to fell old spruce areas now than wait.” 

If he is suddenly forced to designate a large chunk of the forest that has been in his family for three centuries as protected, passing it on to his children would be “impossible”.

“It is very worrying,” he said.

As part of the biodiversity strategy, the EU also proposed a new Nature Restoration Law in June that aims to restore by the end of the decade 20 percent of nature areas like forests and wetlands to the state they were in 70 years ago.

In a landmark report last year on climate impacts and vulnerabilities, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that restoring natural forests and drained peatlands and improving sustainability of managed forests “generally enhances the resilience of carbon stocks and sinks.”

In Finland, where forests cover around 75 percent of land, the proposals by Brussels have sparked outrage in the forestry industry, as well as a rift in the coalition government.

– ‘Exceptionally unfair’ –

Finland’s main opposition parties have proposed a no-confidence motion Friday against Prime Minister Sanna Marin’s centre-left government over its handling of the issue.

“This regulation proposed by the Commission is exceptionally unfair to Finland,” Saara-Sofia Siren, an MP in the opposition National Coalition Party, told AFP.

The opposition claims the heavily forested Nordic country will be forced to bear the brunt of the cost of the EU’s plans.

“For Germany the cost is estimated at 190 million (euros), while for Finland, a significantly smaller country, it is close to one billion euros per year,” Siren said.

In 2020, the value of Finnish exports of forest industry products was 10.4 billion euros, amounting to 18 percent of the country’s total exports.

While Siren acknowledged that more environmental protection is needed, it is “important” for Finland that forestry policy is decided at the “national level”, she said.

And Finland is not alone in its concerns: in July 2021, 10 EU member states wrote a joint letter to the Commission expressing “deep concern” over the forestry initiatives.

“We reiterate that the responsibility for forests lies with the Member States,” said the letter signed by Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

France is also opposed to the move, as is Sweden, which takes over the rotating EU presidency on January 1 and has said it plans to push for forestry issues to be decided at the national level.

– Destruction of biodiversity –

The issue has also divided Finland’s five-party government coalition.

The Greens, in favour of the protection measures, have been at odds with the Centre Party, traditionally strong supporters of the forestry industry.

After days of late-night wrangling leading up to Friday’s confidence vote, the coalition parties agreed on a critical stance towards the EU measures and the government was expected to survive the vote.

Marin told parliament on Wednesday the EU proposal was “not acceptable without substantial changes”.

Meanwhile, Jaana Back, a Helsinki University forest science professor, said there is “no doubt these measures are needed to curb the loss of nature and the destruction of biodiversity”.

But she said the won’t “happen without active intervention”, and noted that after a decade of promoting voluntary measures the European Commission has found forest protection to be “far from adequate”.

Back said intensive utilisation of Finnish forests has led to a decline in the number of species and forest growth has slowed, reducing their ability to absorb carbon.

In May, Statistics Finland estimated that in 2021 the land use sector became a net source of emissions for the first time as the carbon sink of forests decreased.

“The growth slowdown is one factor in the sink’s decrease, another factor is that logging has increased,” Back said.

Air pollution emitted by humans contributed to 3.3 million deaths in 2020, according to recent research

Deadlier than Covid, or even rivalling cancer? Researchers have been increasingly attempting to calculate the effect climate change will have on health if the world does not act quickly to reduce carbon emissions.

The World Health Organization, which says climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, has called for the issue to be “front and centre” in negotiations at the COP27 summit being held in Egypt.

But quantifying the overall impact is an extremely complicated task, experts told AFP, because global warming affects health in many different ways, from the immediate dangers of rising heat and extreme weather to longer-term food and water shortages, air pollution and disease.

The WHO estimates that climate change will cause 250,000 extra deaths a year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress between 2030 and 2050.

That is widely thought to be a “massively conservative estimate” of the true toll, partly because it only comes from four sources, said Jess Beagley, policy lead at the NGO Global Climate and Health Alliance.

“Climate change is a threat multiplier,” she told AFP.

“As climate change worsens, we’re going to see the biggest threats to human health increase.”

Nearly 70 percent of all deaths worldwide are from diseases that could be made worse by global warming, according to a report this year from the IPCC, the United Nations’ panel of climate experts.

– 4.2 million more deaths? –

Another major health threat comes from food shortages. Nearly 100 million additional people faced severe food insecurity in 2020 compared to 1981-2010, according to a report last month from The Lancet Countdown, a leading effort to quantify climate change’s impact on health.

Extreme drought has increased by nearly a third over the last 50 years, it added, putting hundreds of millions at risk of lacking access to fresh water.

And air pollution contributed to 3.3 million deaths in 2020, 1.2 million of which were directly related to fossil fuel emissions, the report found.

Researchers have also been sounding the alarm that warmer temperatures are pushing virus-carrying animals like mosquitoes into new areas, increasing the spread of existing diseases — and raising the risk of new ones jumping across to humans.

The likelihood of dengue transmission rose by 12 percent over the last 50 years, while warming temperatures extended malaria season in parts of Africa by 14 percent, the Lancet Countdown report said.

Projecting into the future, a new platform launched last week by the United Nations Development Programme and the Climate Impact Lab warned that global warming could become deadlier than cancer in some parts of the world.

Under the modelling research’s worst-case scenario in which fossil fuel emissions are not rapidly scaled back, climate change could cause death rates to increase by 53 deaths per 100,000 people worldwide by 2100 — around double the current rate for lung cancer.

For the current global population, that would mean 4.2 million additional deaths a year, more than the official toll from Covid-19 in 2021.

– ‘Exacerbate inequality’ –

Climate Impact Lab’s Hannah Hess told AFP that the projections were probably conservative because they compared previous data on mortality and weather with possible future temperatures, so did not include potential threats such as vector-borne diseases.

The platform also gave specific local projections for more than 24,000 regions worldwide. Under the worst-case scenario, it found that in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka, climate change-related deaths could double those from all cancers by 2100.

The study did project that death rates would fall in some northern, mostly wealthy nations, where fewer cold spells could lead to a net improvement in health.

This “speaks even more to the potential of climate change to exacerbate inequality”, she added.

There have been calls to include such additional deaths into the “social cost of carbon”, the price put on the harm attributable to a tonne of CO2.

Research published in September estimated that the current price of $51 per metric tonne was nearly four times too low, in part because it underestimated the effect of extra deaths.

The global charity Wellcome Trust is among those funding further research on global warming’s impact on health, according to its climate and health director Alan Dangour.

Dangour told AFP that soon “climate change will influence every aspect of public health”.

“If we don’t embed climate change into our thinking, we’ve completely missed the point.”

Underwater explorer Mike Barnette and wreck diver Jimmy Gadomski explore a segment of NASA's Challenger space shuttle off the coast of Florida in a picture provided by The History Channel

Divers searching for a World War II-era aircraft near the Bermuda Triangle have found a piece of an entirely different sort of vessel: part of the US Challenger space shuttle that exploded soon after takeoff in 1986.

The shuttle burst apart just dozens of seconds after launching from Florida, killing seven crew members, including the teacher Christa McAuliffe who had won a national screening.

The Challenger segment, preserved remarkably well at the bottom of the Atlantic, is one of the largest pieces ever discovered from the space disaster, NASA confirmed Thursday.

Images from the discovery, which was made in spring 2022, show two divers surrounded by fish, touching some of the shuttle’s sand-covered tiles — small squares that covered the entire underside of the ship to enable it to withstand extreme heat during its return to the atmosphere.

One of the two divers, Mike Barnette, told AFP that he experienced a real “roller coaster ride of emotions” when he realized what he was touching.

“When we found it, (there were) a lot of mixed emotions,” said the marine biologist, who explores ship wrecks as a hobby. 

“I’m used to diving on shipwrecks that are decades to centuries old, and not a piece of the space program. This is quite unique,” he said.

“That turned quickly to realizing ‘Yeah, this is an episode that I lived through. When this happened, I remember exactly where I was, watching this live on TV,'” he said.

After the discovery, he showed the images to an astronaut friend who confirmed it was the shuttle. A few months later, the US space agency  officially confirmed it.

“They were stunned and staggered by how large of a piece it was,” Barnette said.

– Partly buried –

The visible part of the shuttle is about 4.5 by 4.5 meters. But the piece extends under the sand and it is still unknown its total size.

One thing is certain, however: “I can certainly say with confidence, it’s one of the largest we’ve ever found,” Mike Ciannilli, a NASA employee for more than 25 years, said of the segment.

It’s definitely Challenger’s underside, Ciannilli told AFP, but it’s hard to know exactly which part of the ship.

Analysis of the piece, he said, will not shed any new light on the accident itself. The cause of the tragedy is well established — severe cold caused damage to crucial rubber seals. Observing how the materials have aged could still be interesting, however.

Above all, he emphasized, the discovery could help with “reigniting the lessons learned from that particular mission.”

Following the January 28, 1986 accident, extensive search operations were carried out to find pieces of the ship. Ten years later, two new ones emerged on a beach after a storm. These were the last found to date.

One piece is on display at a public memorial at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and others are kept nearby.

– ‘Honor and remembrance’ –

Barnette and his diving partner were looking for a World War II plane for a documentary about disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle when they discovered the Challenger piece.

The first episode, which will air on the History Channel on November 22, in the end will have a space ship rather than a boat or plane for its subject.

“That’s what I love about this endeavor, you go out trying to find one thing and you stumble upon a totally different mystery,” Barnette said.

The site was chosen thanks to information from fishermen, who guessed there might be a wreck at the spot because it seemed to attract a lot of fish.

The spot in question is west of the Bermuda Triangle, not within it, but the exact location is not being revealed so as not to attract curious onlookers. Nor would the divers reveal the depth of the seafloor at the wreckage site.

According to Barnette, it would be “very easy” for NASA to recover the piece from the water, but such a move might only end up “reopening wounds.”

Discussions are ongoing, Ciannilli added, but “whatever we do, our first and foremost objective is to make sure we bring honor and remembrance for the legacy of the crew, and we honor the families.”

US President Joe Biden will arrive at the COP27 climate summit after US midterm elections raised questions about what the result could mean for US climate policy

US President Joe Biden flies into UN climate talks in Egypt on Friday armed with major domestic achievements against global warming but under pressure to do more for countries reeling from natural disasters.

Biden will only spend a few hours at COP27 in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, three days after US midterm elections that have raised questions about what the result could mean for US climate policy.

The US leader’s climate agenda was given a major boost this year when Congress passed a landmark spending bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $369 billion for clean energy and climate initiatives.

But at COP27, talk has been dominated by the need for wealthy nations to stop stalling on helping developing countries green their economies and prepare for future impacts — as well as calls to provide financial help for the damage already being caused by climate-induced catastrophes.

“The world needs the United States to be a climate leader in our fight for climate justice,” prominent Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate told AFP.

“The message is for President Biden to stand with the people on the planet and the coming generations,” said the 25-year-old Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.

Biden is attending COP27 three days after 100 other world leaders addressed the summit.

A senior US official said Biden was heading to Egypt “with historic momentum” on the back of the spending bill and his goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 52 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels.

So far at the Egypt talks, US climate envoy John Kerry has presented a public-private partnership aimed at supporting the transition to renewable energy in developing nations and based on a carbon credit system.

The plan has been panned by activists wary of firms using these to “offset” their carbon emissions.

– Climate-sceptic Republicans –

Biden also may have a chance to revive cooperation with China when he meets President Xi Jinping during G20 talks next week, with another US official saying he would seek to discuss how to “advance our work together on climate change”.

Beijing cut off climate talks with Washington after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August.

Cooperation between the world’s two biggest polluters has been crucial to global efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

But with Republicans apparently poised to retake the House of Representatives, part of Biden’s climate agenda could take a hit. Democrats have a chance to retain the Senate.

Biden pledged to contribute $11.4 billion to a $100 billion per year scheme through which rich countries will help developing ones transition to renewable energies and build resilience against climate change.

But Democrats would have to rush it through Congress before climate-sceptic Republicans take office in January.

“We’re going to be pressing for passage of the appropriations bills,” US lawmaker Kathy Castor, who chairs a special climate crisis committee in the House, told AFP.

“Hopefully Republicans in the Congress will not block it,” she said.

– ‘Loss and damage’ –

The United States has also for years resisted attempts to establish a “loss and damage” fund in which rich polluters would compensate developing nations for the destruction from climate-related disasters.

Emerging countries successfully put the issue on the official COP27 agenda and fraught negotiations are likely before the talks end on November 18.

Biden will also use the trip to meet with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and discuss the human rights situation in the country, where the case of jailed dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah was raised by other leaders earlier this week.

Ahead of his trip, the White House expressed “deep concern” for the jailed British-Egyptian activist, who is on a hunger strike.

After COP27, Biden will head to an ASEAN regional summit in Cambodia at the weekend before travelling to Indonesia for G20 talks.

La fusée SLS de la Nasa sur son pas de tir le 6 novembre 2022 au Centre spatial Kennedy, en Floride

After initial visual inspections, NASA said on Thursday that its new mega moon rocket apparently suffered no major damage after Hurricane Nicole hit Florida.

But employees must conduct further checks on site as soon as possible to confirm the initial assessment, said Jim Free, associate administrator at the US space agency.

Free said that NASA teams employing cameras at the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center found “very minor damage such as loose caulk and tears in weather coverings.”

Nicole made landfall Wednesday night on Florida’s Atlantic Coast as a Category 1 hurricane.

Free said wind sensors detected gusts up to 82 miles (132 kilometers) per hour along the rocket’s body, which is “within the rocket’s capability” to withstand.

The uncrewed Artemis 1 mission, slated now to blast off on November 16, will mark the very first flight of a highly-anticipated US program of returning to the moon. NASA hopes to use an Artemis rocket to send astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2025, assuming the program goes to plan.

Such a feat would mark the first time humans walk on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.

National Guard helicopters fight a wildfire in California; the rising number of such fires in the United States is increasing demands on troops

The fallout from climate change threatens to fuel conflicts around the world, adding to the suffering caused by the direct effects of a rapidly warming planet.

Competition will grow as droughts make food and water increasingly scarce, people will flee hard-hit areas, and melting Arctic ice is opening up new areas for countries to vie for resources and influence — all factors that expand the potential for conflict.

As climate change presents new security threats, it also poses significant challenges for the US military as it operates around the world deterring adversaries and addressing crises.

Storms and flooding have already caused billions of dollars in damage to US bases and the threat will only worsen. At the same time, more frequent disasters are increasing demands on troops and more extreme environmental conditions may require changes to training and equipment.

“Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and more frequent, extreme and unpredictable weather conditions caused by climate change are worsening existing security risks and creating new challenges,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in the forward to a 2022 progress report on efforts to adapt to climate change.

“Climate change is increasing the demand and scope for military operations at home and around the world. At the same time, it is undermining military readiness and imposing increasingly unsustainable costs on the Department of Defense,” Austin said.

Morgan Higman, a fellow in the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program, said there are already tensions over how to address climate change, while its physical effects will “create the potential for conflict within and across country borders.”

– Damaged bases –

“Many countries are facing hardship associated with drought and water scarcity, sea-level rise, and/or extreme heat — impacts which will reduce economic productivity, exacerbate migration and require increasing levels of humanitarian assistance,” she said.

Gregory Pollock, principal director of the Pentagon’s Office of Arctic and Global Resilience Policy, which is responsible for addressing the national security implications of climate change, said the United States is “closely monitoring” potential increased competition over resources.

A climate-driven rise in migration “bears the potential to destabilize various parts of the world,” he said, while the opening of the Arctic — and increased competition in the region — is another possible source of instability.

As various countries pursue objectives in the region, “our concern is that that could lead to a change in the security environment in that part of the world. The Arctic has historically been a peaceful region; we wish to keep it that way,” Pollock said.

Aside from the increased potential for conflict, climate change — the topic of high-level talks this week at the COP27 summit in Egypt — is presenting other challenges for the US military.

Pollock said three US bases suffered some $9 billion in hurricane and flood damage from 2018 to 2019, and there are key sites around the world that “are likely to be increasingly compromised by forces associated with climate change, whether it’s coastal erosion, or flooding, or increased hurricanes or typhoons.”

– ‘Erodes readiness’ –

Climate change also means troops may be fighting in tougher conditions — a situation the Defense Department acknowledges could require shifts in training and equipment.

The US military is “preparing combat forces capable of operating under the most extreme and adverse weather and terrain conditions,” its climate adaptation progress report said.

It is currently “assessing and reviewing testing and training programs, equipment, exercises and acquisition for integration of climate change considerations.”

US forces are already responding to a rising number of disasters, both abroad and at home.

“We’re… seeing increased frequency of disasters, and therefore increased demand on US military forces to contribute to response operations,” especially in Asia in recent years, Pollock said.

Inside the United States, National Guard forces are now being tasked with combating wildfires throughout the year as opposed to throughout a season, which is “taxing on our force, and it erodes readiness,” he said.

There is more than $3 billion in climate-related funding in the proposed 2023 defense budget, and the US military highlighted the threat posed by climate change in its 2022 National Defense Strategy.

But a change in who holds the White House could lead to decreased emphasis on the challenges posed by climate change — something Higman said the Pentagon needs to avoid.

“The military can’t not think about climate change,” she said. “The hazards are too great and too numerous.”

Emissions from oil, fuelled by the continuing rebound in aviation, will likely rise more than two percent in 2022

Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change, are on track to rise one percent in 2022 to reach an all-time high, scientists said Friday at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.

Emissions from oil, fuelled by the continuing rebound in aviation, will likely rise more than two percent compared to last year, while emissions from coal — thought by some to have peaked in 2014 — will hit a new record.

“Oil is more driven by the recovery from Covid, and coal and gas are more driven by events in Ukraine,” Glen Peters, research director at CICERO climate research institute in Norway, told AFP.

Global CO2 emissions from all sources — including deforestation and land use — will top out at 40.6 billion tonnes, just below the record level in 2019, the first peer-reviewed projections for 2022 showed.

Despite the wild cards of pandemic recovery and an energy crisis provoked by war in Ukraine, the uptick in carbon pollution from burning oil, gas and coal is consistent with underlying trends, the data suggested. 

And deeply worrying, said Peters, a co-author of the study.

“Emissions are now five percent above what they were when the Paris Agreement was signed” in 2015, he noted. 

“You have to ask: When are they going to go down?”

– Carbon budget –

The new figures show just how dauntingly hard it will be to slash emissions fast enough to meet the Paris goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Heating beyond that threshold, scientists warn, risks triggering dangerous tipping points in the climate system.

Barely 1.2C of warming to date has unleashed a crescendo of deadly and costly extreme weather, from heat waves and drought to flooding and tropical storms made more destructive by rising seas. 

To achieve the ambitious Paris target, global greenhouse emissions must drop 45 percent by 2030, and be cut to net zero by mid-century, with any residual emissions compensated by removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

To be on track for a net-zero world, emissions would have to plummet by seven percent annually over the next eight years. 

To put that in perspective: in 2020, with much of the world’s economy on lock down, emissions fell by only six percent.

Over a longer time frame, the annual rise in CO2 from fossil fuel use has slowed, on average, to 0.5 percent per year over the last decade after climbing three percent annually from 2000 to 2010.  

To have a 50/50 chance of staying under the 1.5C limit, humanity’s emissions allowance is 380 billion tonnes of CO2, according to the study in Earth System Science Data, authored by more than 100 scientists. 

On current emissions trends of 40 billion tonnes a year, that “carbon budget” would be used up in less than a decade.

For a two-thirds chance, the budget shrivels by a quarter and would be exhausted in seven years.

– ‘Deeply depressing’ –

In recent decades, scientists could usually draw a straight line between CO2 trends and the economy of China, which has been the world’s top carbon polluter for about 15 years.

In 2022, however, China’s CO2 output is set to drop by nearly one percent for the year, almost certainly reflecting an economic slowdown linked to Beijing’s strict zero-covid policy.

Despite having to scramble for alternate sources of energy, including carbon-intensive coal, the European Union is on track to see its emissions fall by almost as much, 0.8 percent.

US emissions will likely go up by 1.5 percent, and India’s by six percent.

The annual update also revealed that the ability of oceans, forests and soil to continue soaking up more than half of CO2 emissions has slowed.

“These ‘sinks’ are weaker than they would be if not for the impacts of a changing climate,” said co-author Corinne Le Quere, a professor at the University of East Anglia.

Scientists not involved in the findings said they were grim.

“Global Carbon Budget for 2022 is deeply depressing,” said Mark Maslin, a professor of Climatology at University College London.

“To have any chance of staying below the international agreed 1.5C global warming target we need to have large annual cuts in emissions — which there is no sign of.” 

Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate wants fossil fuels phased out and funding to help vulnerable countries cope with accelerating climate impacts

Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate on Thursday urged US President Joe Biden to help those most affected by the ravages of global warming, a day before his arrival for UN climate talks in Egypt.

Nakate, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations’ children’s fund UNICEF, urged Biden to listen to climate science and those “on the frontlines of this crisis”.

She also called for fossil fuels to be phased out and funding to help vulnerable countries cope with accelerating climate impacts.

“The world needs the United States to be a climate leader in our fight for climate justice,” the 25-year-old told AFP in an interview at the COP27 climate conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. 

“The message is for President Biden to stand with the people on the planet and the coming generations.”

Inspired by Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, Nakate — who founded the Rise Up Climate Movement in her native Uganda — has become a prominent voice among global youth fighting for climate action and justice. 

Although she is unlikely to meet the US president in person during his fleeting trip to the two-week climate talks, Nakate urged Biden to summon the “political will” to support communities most affected by the snowballing impacts caused by a warming world. 

This year alone has seen a barrage of extreme heat waves and crop-withering droughts across the world, while catastrophic floods have swept Pakistan and Nigeria. 

Floods had also ripped through Nakate’s own region in Uganda, she said.  

“When you look at all these crises that are happening and they are just around you in your community, you have no choice but to come here and believe that another world is not only necessary but it’s also possible,” she said.  

– ‘Cannot eat coal’ –

Thunberg has snubbed the UN talks in Egypt — billed as an “Africa COP” — over concerns about restrictions for campaigners. 

But Nakate said she had been compelled to attend because of the growing harm suffered by people in the global south, adding that activists were using social media and interviews in the press to keep up the pressure on leaders.

She said it was more important than ever “to hold our leaders accountable and to remind them that we cannot eat coal, we cannot drink oil and we cannot breathe gas”. 

In a world gripped by energy, food and inflation crises — fuelled by climate impacts, the war in Ukraine, and the pandemic — the challenges of soaring prices are too often seen only through the eyes of wealthier nations, Nakate said.

“In countries like Uganda, many people are being impacted and suffering because, as the fuel prices rise, transportation rises, food prices rise as well,” she said, adding that many people “just don’t know how to keep up with it”.

She called for the international community to step up investments that address energy poverty in Africa and support the shift to renewable power. 

“If there is no climate finance to support that transition, many of our countries are being pressured into taking money from fossil fuel companies so that they can lift their communities out of energy poverty,” she said. 

In her role for UNICEF, Nakate has recently visited communities affected by the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, where millions are on the brink of starvation, including children.

These tragedies can reverberate for many years throughout an individual’s life, even generations, Nakate said. 

But she noted that Biden and the other world leaders who have travelled to Egypt this week should understand that their positive actions also have the potential to echo into the future.  

“I’ve heard of something called the butterfly effect, whereby just one thing that may seem like a small action can end up affecting the lives of so many people,” she said, adding that leaders have a choice whether their effect is positive or negative. 

“If it’s to be positive, then one action right now will benefit not only our generation, but also the coming generations,” she said.

Nakate urged Biden to summon the 'political will' to support communities most affected by the burgeoning impacts caused by a warming world

Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate on Thursday urged US President Joe Biden to help those most affected by the ravages of global warming, a day before his arrival for UN climate talks in Egypt.

Nakate, a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations’ children’s fund UNICEF, urged Biden to listen to climate science and those “on the frontlines of this crisis”.

She also called for fossil fuels to be phased out and funding to help vulnerable countries cope with accelerating climate impacts.

“The world needs the United States to be a climate leader in our fight for climate justice,” the 25-year-old told AFP in an interview at the COP27 climate conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. 

“The message is for President Biden to stand with the people on the planet and the coming generations.”

Inspired by Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, Nakate — who founded the Rise Up Climate Movement in her native Uganda — has become a prominent voice among global youth fighting for climate action and justice. 

Although she is unlikely to meet the US president in person during his fleeting trip to the two-week climate talks, Nakate urged Biden to summon the “political will” to support communities most affected by the snowballing impacts caused by a warming world. 

This year alone has seen a barrage of extreme heat waves and crop-withering droughts across the world, while catastrophic floods have swept Pakistan and Nigeria. 

Floods had also ripped through Nakate’s own region in Uganda, she said.  

“When you look at all these crises that are happening and they are just around you in your community, you have no choice but to come here and believe that another world is not only necessary but it’s also possible,” she said.  

– ‘Cannot eat coal’ –

Thunberg has snubbed the UN talks in Egypt — billed as an “Africa COP” — over concerns about restrictions for campaigners. 

But Nakate said she had been compelled to attend because of the growing harm suffered by people in the global south, adding that activists were using social media and interviews in the press to keep up the pressure on leaders.

She said it was more important than ever “to hold our leaders accountable and to remind them that we cannot eat coal, we cannot drink oil and we cannot breathe gas”. 

In a world gripped by energy, food and inflation crises — fuelled by climate impacts, the war in Ukraine, and the pandemic — the challenges of soaring prices are too often seen only through the eyes of wealthier nations, Nakate said.

“In countries like Uganda, many people are being impacted and suffering because, as the fuel prices rise, transportation rises, food prices rise as well,” she said, adding that many people “just don’t know how to keep up with it”.

She called for the international community to step up investments that address energy poverty in Africa and support the shift to renewable power. 

“If there is no climate finance to support that transition, many of our countries are being pressured into taking money from fossil fuel companies so that they can lift their communities out of energy poverty,” she said. 

In her role for UNICEF, Nakate has recently visited communities affected by the devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, where millions are on the brink of starvation, including children.

These tragedies can reverberate for many years throughout an individual’s life, even generations, Nakate said. 

But she noted that Biden and the other world leaders who have travelled to Egypt this week should understand that their positive actions also have the potential to echo into the future.  

“I’ve heard of something called the butterfly effect, whereby just one thing that may seem like a small action can end up affecting the lives of so many people,” she said, adding that leaders have a choice whether their effect is positive or negative. 

“If it’s to be positive, then one action right now will benefit not only our generation, but also the coming generations,” she said.