AFP UK

It had been completely dry in Sacramento for six months. Then the heavens opened and a record-breaking amount of rain fell in one day.

Such extreme shifts are becoming more frequent in California and are a harbinger of what is to come for the rest of a warming planet, scientists say.

“California is a sentinel state. It’s like a canary in a coal mine,” said Justin Mankin, a Dartmouth College professor who specializes in climate change.

“The state is a crucial bellwether for society’s capacity to respond to these types of climate stresses happening today.”

And it’s not looking good.

Soaring temperatures have been responsible for multiple heat-related deaths this year, while a historic drought has left swathes of the western United States parched, with desperate pleas from officials to save precious water supplies.

Forest fires have torn through the countryside at an alarming rate, consuming more than 2.5 million acres (one million hectares) in California this year, and sending choking smoke over towns and cities.

Then, when the weather suddenly turned and a “bomb cyclone” smashed into the US West Coast last weekend, severe thunderstorms inundated towns and left streets waist-deep in water.

Around 5.5 inches (14 centimeters) of rain fell on state capital Sacramento in one day and, with no vegetation to soak up the heavy water, the burn scars left behind by wildfires created treacherous mudslides and rockslides.

These sudden — and intense — shifts, known as “weather whiplash,” have always been part of California’s natural meteorology.

But global warming, chiefly caused by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities, is making it a lot worse.

The exacerbation of these extremes over the past decade in California is “consistent with what climate projections indicated,” said Marty Ralph, director of the San Diego-based Center for Western Climate and Water Extremes. 

– Water management – 

So far, California is failing the test created by weather extremes.

“The impacts associated with the weather events that have occurred just this past week, and over the past 20 months of drought tells me that Californians are not well adapted to the climate they have right now, let alone to the climate that’s coming,” said Mankin.

For Ralph, a worsening of the already difficult conditions has worrying implications for water management.

“It will be more challenging for the current water infrastructure — meaning dams and canals and all that — to handle getting more of the rain in shorter periods, and having longer dry spells in between,” he said.

The key to surviving these extremes will be smarter prediction. Maybe.

“If we have reliable enough forecasts, they might be able to release some extra water ahead of the storm in order to make space for the flood,” said Ralph.

– Blink of an eye –

The storms that recently raked the West Coast brought their own destruction, but they did help to make up some of the drought deficit.

Lake Oroville, a key reservoir, was 30 feet (nine meters) higher a few days after the storm, California’s Department of Water Resources said.

But the extra water was not much more than a drop in the bucket at a time when reservoir levels are at historic lows.

“Maybe it eases some of the pressures associated with mandatory water reductions or voluntary water use reductions or whatever sets of policies the governor’s office may be considering,” said Mankin. 

“But the fact of the matter is, it is not enough to address the drought. The drought is going to be here next week,” he said.

As world leaders ready to gather in Glasgow for COP26 — a make-or-break summit on the future of the planet — scientists are unanimous that climate change is not a hypothetical.

It is already happening, and even if Glasgow exceeds expectations, humanity is still going to have to deal with the consequences of the damage we have already done.

“Our mission of mitigating our emissions, which should be the immediate focus, will just stop it from getting worse,” said Mankin.

“It won’t stop it from happening.”

Ralph agreed.

What humans as a species have set in motion is something difficult to fully fathom in the horizons people understand, he said.

“It’s very slow motion relative to human lifetimes,” he explained.

“Relative to the planet, it’s happening in the blink of an eye.”

China on Thursday submitted a renewed emissions cutting plan that promised to peak carbon pollution before 2030 but which experts said stopped short of the radical decarbonisation required of the world’s largest polluter.

Beijing’s new submission to the United Nations, just days before the COP26 climate summit, confirmed its goal to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 and slash its emissions intensity — the amount of emissions per unit of economic output — by more than 65 percent.

Analysts said these amounted to minor improvements on China’s existing plan and were far from sufficient from the country responsible for more than a quarter of all carbon pollution.

As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, all countries agreed to slash emissions in order to limit temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius and to strive for a safer 1.5-C warming cap.

Under the accord’s “ratchet” mechanism, signatories agreed to submit new and more ambitious emissions cutting plans — known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs — every five years.

Last year, President Xi Jinping indicated that China would achieve carbon neutrality around 2060 and peak emissions around 2030.

But China had been a major NDC holdout, missing several submission deadlines during the year-long delay of COP26 due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

It was hoped its new plan could build momentum ahead of the summit in Glasgow, which begins on Sunday with world leaders seeking to map out a path to avoid climate disaster.

According to the document, published on the UN’s climate change website, China will increase its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 25 percent, up from the 20 percent previously pledged. 

It also plans to increase its forest stock by six billion cubic metres compared with 2005 levels and “bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030”.

However it was not immediately clear how Beijing plans to draw down its emissions in line with what science says is needed to avoid catastrophic levels of heating this century.

– ‘Casts a shadow’ –

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa said China’s commitment to net-zero emissions before 2060 was a “very positive development”.

“Now we need to work with China in trying to bring the 2060 as early as possible, and what we are doing with many countries is to say: that is very good but we need clear plans now,” she told a press briefing.

Li Shuo, an analyst with Greenpeace Asia, said China’s new NDC “missed an opportunity to demonstrate ambition”.

“China’s decision on its NDC casts a shadow on the global climate effort,” he tweeted.

“The planet can’t afford this being the last word. Beijing needs to come up with stronger implementation plans to ensure an emission peak before 2025.”

China has been accused of sidestepping calls to stop building new coal-fired power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution.

Nick Mabey, chief executive of the E3G environmental think tank, said China’s new emissions plan was virtually “unchanged” from previous promises.

“This lowers other countries’ confidence in the delivery of China’s deep decarbonisation pathway,” he said. 

The UN says greenhouse gas emissions must be cut nearly in half by 2030 to keep 1.5C within reach.

This week it said countries’ latest pledges put Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century.

Its Emissions Gap report also called on countries to start slashing emissions immediately and to align their net-zero plans with the 1.5C pathway. 

More than 120 heads of state and government will travel to Glasgow to kick off the 13-day meeting, including US President Joe Biden, India’s Narendra Modi, French leader Emmanuel Macron and Australia’s Scott Morrison. 

Xi has not left China during the pandemic and is unlikely to attend.

Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions rose by 9.5 percent last year, mostly because of deforestation, a report said Thursday, making it one of the only major economies not to cut pollution as the pandemic hit.

Even as worldwide emissions fell seven percent in 2020 — a silver lining of Covid-19 stay-at-home measures that paralyzed the global economy — Brazil released the equivalent of 2.16 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, its highest since 2006, said the report from the Climate Observatory, a coalition of environmental groups.

“The increase in deforestation in Brazil, particularly in the Amazon rainforest, put the country at odds with the trend seen in the rest of the planet,” it said.

Deforestation in Brazil has surged since far-right President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019 with a push to open protected lands to agribusiness and mining.

Like most countries, Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, reduced pollution from the energy sector last year as the pandemic brought industry and aviation to a standstill.

Emissions there fell by 4.6 percent, to levels not seen since 2011.

But that gain was more than offset by increases of 2.5 percent for the agricultural sector and 23.7 percent for “land use changes,” which includes the cutting and burning of trees.

Driven largely by farming and cattle ranching, such land clearing releases carbon into the atmosphere — a major problem for the world’s biggest producer and exporter of soy and beef.

Under Bolsonaro, the Brazilian Amazon has lost more than 10,000 square kilometers (3,860 square miles) a year of forest cover, an area the size of Lebanon, up from 6,500 square kilometers a year over the previous decade.

Climate Observatory executive secretary Marcio Astrini blamed Bolsonaro’s “anti-policies” on the environment for the emissions increase.

“Brazil managed the feat of being perhaps the only major carbon emitter to pollute more in the first year of the pandemic,” he said in a statement.

“This is one more blow to the international image of the country, which arrives completely discredited to the COP26” — the upcoming UN climate summit.

Opening Sunday in Glasgow, it is the biggest climate conference since the 2015 Paris talks produced a landmark accord on curbing global warming, and is seen as crucial for setting global emissions-cutting targets.

China on Thursday submitted a renewed emissions cutting plan that promised to peak carbon pollution before 2030 but which experts said stopped short of the radical decarbonisation required of the world’s largest polluter.

Beijing’s new submission to the United Nations, just days before the COP26 climate summit, confirmed its goal to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 and slash its emissions intensity — the amount of emissions per unit of economic output — by more than 65 percent.

Analysts said these amounted to minor improvements on China’s existing plan and were far from sufficient from the country responsible for more than a quarter of all carbon pollution.

As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, all countries agreed to slash emissions in order to limit temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius and to strive for a safer 1.5-C warming cap.

Under the accord’s “ratchet” mechanism, signatories agreed to submit new and more ambitious emissions cutting plans — known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs — every five years.

Last year, President Xi Jinping indicated that China would achieve carbon neutrality around 2060 and peak emissions around 2030.

But China had been a major NDC holdout, missing several submission deadlines during the year-long delay of COP26 due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

It was hoped its new plan could build momentum ahead of the summit in Glasgow, which begins on Sunday with world leaders seeking to map out a path to avoid climate disaster.

According to the document, published on the UN’s climate change website, China will increase its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 25 percent, up from the 20 percent previously pledged. 

It also plans to increase its forest stock by six billion cubic metres compared with 2005 levels and “bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030”.

However it was not immediately clear how Beijing plans to draw down its emissions in line with what science says is needed to avoid catastrophic levels of heating this century.

– ‘Casts a shadow’ –

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa said China’s commitment to net-zero emissions before 2060 was a “very positive development”.

“Now we need to work with China in trying to bring the 2060 as early as possible, and what we are doing with many countries is to say: that is very good but we need clear plans now,” she told a press briefing.

Li Shuo, an analyst with Greenpeace Asia, said China’s new NDC “missed an opportunity to demonstrate ambition”.

“China’s decision on its NDC casts a shadow on the global climate effort,” he tweeted.

“The planet can’t afford this being the last word. Beijing needs to come up with stronger implementation plans to ensure an emission peak before 2025.”

China has been accused of sidestepping calls to stop building new coal-fired power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution.

Nick Mabey, chief executive of the E3G environmental think tank, said China’s new emissions plan was virtually “unchanged” from previous promises.

“This lowers other countries’ confidence in the delivery of China’s deep decarbonisation pathway,” he said. 

The UN says greenhouse gas emissions must be cut nearly in half by 2030 to keep 1.5C within reach.

This week it said countries’ latest pledges put Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century.

Its Emissions Gap report also called on countries to start slashing emissions immediately and to align their net-zero plans with the 1.5C pathway. 

More than 120 heads of state and government will travel to Glasgow to kick off the 13-day meeting, including US President Joe Biden, India’s Narendra Modi, French leader Emmanuel Macron and Australia’s Scott Morrison. 

Xi has not left China during the pandemic and is unlikely to attend.

African countries will use next week’s COP summit to demand rich nations honour and then deepen their pledges to fund the fight against climate change, a top negotiator said Thursday. 

The UN meeting in Scotland hosts a two-day summit of world leaders from Monday, with organisers warning that the chances of averting runaway climate change are dwindling. 

For wealthy economies, the big focus will be on cuts in carbon emissions to try to restrict global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

This is the safer of two goals set down by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for preventing worse drought, floods, storms and rising seas.  

But for African countries, the biggest issue is money — funds to help struggling economies curb their emissions and also adapt to the wrenching impact of climate change. 

“We have been waiting for more than 10 years for the promise of $100 billion per year,” Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale, chair of the African Group of countries at the climate talks, told AFP. 

It was in 2009 that rich countries first pledged to muster $100 billion annually, from all sources, to help poorer nations, a target that would be achieved by 2020.

The promise was made to help stave off a fiasco at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit and was enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement — the negotiating basis for the coming talks in Glasgow.

But the 2020 goal was missed and Britain’s COP president, Alok Sharma, has admitted it is unlikely to be achieved before 2023. 

“The position of the African group is that we can come back on track and find a solution to close this gap,” said Gahouma-Bekale, an adviser to the Gabon government.

“We need now to go to the target that we committed in the Paris agreement this year, not in two years.”

– Vulnerable Africa –

Wealthier countries are grappling with how to revamp their energy systems to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, but African nations face different challenges, said Gahouma-Bekale.

“Africa is not going to accept to limit its economic development to accompany the fight against climate change — that is why we are asking for support,” he said.

“Africa is not at all responsible for the situation, but is one of the most vulnerable continents.

“We must also ensure the fight against poverty, we must ensure jobs for young people and we must ensure energy for all. 

“The African continent has a population that is almost half disconnected from the electricity grid. 

“So rather than looking for an energy transition, we need to look at how we are going to match our energy supply with demand,” he added. 

That would require much more funding than the $100 billion a year currently pledged, he warned.

“Now that promise has become obsolete, it’s no longer relevant. We think that maybe we need 10 times more.”

He also demanded better accounting of how the money was being delivered.

“Today we have no methodology, no table on how to track this money,” he said.

Official figures show that between 70 and 80 percent of the $100 billion target had been delivered, “but a lot of countries didn’t see the money on the ground”, he claimed. 

“So where goes this money?”

Many developing countries are also angry at the logistics of the conference in Glasgow, despite British government promises to offer free coronavirus vaccines to any delegates in need.

“The cost to find accommodation is very high, so African delegates may be one hour” from Glasgow, Gahouma-Bekale said. 

“We have also a lot of challenges due to quarantine, to vaccines.”

Given the scarcity of vaccines in Africa, many delegates will instead have to isolate on arrival and undergo costly tests.

“But we try to come here, we try to do all the visa, all the accommodation to travel to here because it’s a fight for the future, for our children,” he vowed. 

“And we will be here until the end of this COP.”

China on Thursday submitted a renewed emissions cutting plan that promised to peak carbon pollution before 2030 but which experts said stopped short of the radical decarbonisation required of the world’s largest polluter.

Beijing’s new submission to the United Nations, just days before the COP26 climate summit, confirmed its goal to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 and slash its emissions intensity — the amount of emissions per unit of economic output — by more than 65 percent.

Analysts said these amounted to minor improvements on China’s existing plan and were far from sufficient from the country responsible for more than a quarter of all carbon pollution.

As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, all countries agreed to slash emissions in order to limit temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius and to strive for a safer 1.5-C warming cap.

Under the accord’s “ratchet” mechanism, signatories agreed to submit new and more ambitious emissions cutting plans — known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs — every five years.

Last year, President Xi Jinping indicated that China would achieve carbon neutrality around 2060 and peak emissions around 2030.

But China had been a major NDC holdout, missing several submission deadlines during the year-long delay of COP26 due to the pandemic. 

It was hoped its new plan could build momentum ahead of the summit in Glasgow, which begins on Sunday. 

According to the document, published on the UN’s climate change website, China will increase its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 25 percent, up from the 20 percent previously pledged. 

It also plans to increase its forest stock by six billion cubic metres compared with 2005 levels and “bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030”.

However it was not immediately clear how Beijing plans to draw down its emissions in line with what science says is needed to avoid catastrophic levels of heating this century.

– ‘Casts a shadow’ –

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa said China’s commitment to net-zero emissions before 2060 was a “very positive development”.

“Now we need to work with China in trying to bring the 2060 as early as possible, and what we are doing with many countries is to say: that is very good but we need clear plans now,” she told a press briefing.

Li Shuo, an analyst with Greenpeace Asia, said China’s new NDC “missed an opportunity to demonstrate ambition”.

“China’s decision on its NDC casts a shadow on the global climate effort,” he tweeted.

“The planet can’t afford this being the last word. Beijing needs to come up with stronger implementation plans to ensure an emission peak before 2025.”

China has been accused of sidestepping calls to stop building new coal-fired power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution.

Nick Mabey, chief executive of the E3G environmental think tank, said China’s new emissions plan was virtually “unchanged” from previous promises.

“This lowers other countries’ confidence in the delivery of China’s deep decarbonisation pathway,” he said. 

The UN says greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut nearly in half by 2030 to keep 1.5C within reach.

This week it said countries’ latest pledges put Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century.

Its Emissions Gap report also called on countries to start slashing emissions immediately and to align their net-zero plans with the 1.5C pathway. 

Six years ago, nearly every country in the world set targets for reducing their carbon emissions — but the sum total of their pledges fell far short of what was needed to keep the planet from dangerously overheating.  

That first raft of “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) — many conditioned on financing and technical support — under the 2015 Paris Agreement would have seen Earth heat up three to four degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The treaty called for a cap of “well below” 2C.

And following a landmark 2018 UN climate science report that warned of dire impacts even at 2C, Paris’ aspirational 1.5C limit has become the de facto target.

Under the deal’s “ratchet” mechanism, signatories review and renew their emission-cutting plans every five years. 

Most countries have done so since late 2020, but a new tally still puts the world on course toward “catastrophic” warming of 2.7C by 2100, according to the UN.

Ahead of the COP26 summit kicking off in Glasgow Sunday, AFP rounds up national pledges:

– China –

In 2016, China — responsible for more than a quarter of all carbon pollution and by far the largest emitter — promised to reduce the intensity of its emissions 65 percent by 2030.

In September last year, President Xi Jinping made a surprise announcement at the UN General Assembly: China plans to achieve carbon neutrality by around 2060.

On Thursday, Beijing released its much anticipated NDC update, which refined its promises: peak emissions before 2030 and net-zero before 2060.   

But the country’s new five-year plan does not spell out the steps to reaching this goal. 

In the meantime, China continues to build new coal-fired power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution.

– United States –

The second-largest carbon emitter, the US was a driving force behind the Paris deal, with an initial commitment to cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, compared with 2005 levels.

Once in office, President Joe Biden wasted no time in rejoining the accord after his predecessor Donald Trump’s decision to backtrack on US commitments.

The country’s new NDC calls for lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030. This is compatible to a 2C world, but still falls well short of the effort needed to stay below 1.5C, according to Climate Action Tracker.

– European Union –

The EU committed in 2015 to reducing its CO2 emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.

Member states updated this goal in December, aiming to reduce emissions by “at least 55 percent” by the end of this decade — a goal also in line with 2C of global warming.

Britain, which has now left the EU, has a 2050 net-zero target built into law. 

It announced in December it would seek to reduce emissions by 68 percent by 2030, compared with 1990 levels, in sync with the 1.5C target.

– India –

India is the world’s third-largest polluter, but has a per-capita carbon footprint far lower than the world’s other top emitters.

Like China, the country has unveiled plans to reduce its carbon intensity — by up to 35 percent this decade compared to 2005 levels. 

It has yet to submit a renewed NDC.

– Russia –

Russia, which did not formally join the Paris deal until in 2019, submitted its first carbon-cutting plan in 2020.

Using 1990 levels as a benchmark, Moscow said it plans to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 percent by 2030, a target deemed “critically insufficient” by Climate Action Tracker.

Most recently, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would aim for carbon neutrality by 2060, but did not provide a roadmap for how the country would get there. 

– Japan –

In 2016, Japan committed to a 26-percent reduction in emissions by 2030. Its renewed NDC, issued in March 2020, had the same figure, sparking sharp criticism from carbon monitoring research groups.

But a more ambitious carbon cutting plan unveiled earlier this month sets a goal of reducing emissions by 46 percent by 2030, compared to 2013 levels. 

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the country would be carbon neutral by 2050.

– Other major emitters –

Among other big emitters, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, South Korea and Indonesia have all resubmitted NDCs that are no more ambitious — and in the case of Mexico and Brazil even less ambitious — than before, according to experts.

Canada, South Africa and Argentina, by contrast, have all boosted their carbon-cutting commitments over the next five years.

Last week, Saudi Arabia pledged to be “net zero”, or carbon neutral, by 2060, but announced no plans to curtail oil and gas exports.

Turkey recently announced its ratification of the Paris treaty, and its first NDC may soon follow.

G20 nations — holding a summit in Rome this weekend — represent more than 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

– Carbon neutrality –

More and more governments are committing to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century.

So far, 49 countries accounting for 57 percent of global emissions — including all EU member states, Britain and the United States — have make formal or legal commitments, according to the UN Environment Programme.

Any credible pathway toward global net-zero in 2050 will require slashing carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030, according to the UN.

But 2019 was a record year for emissions, which are rapidly climbing back to pre-pandemic levels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). 

Palestinian authorities on Thursday unveiled one of the largest floor mosaics in the world, in the occupied West Bank city of Jericho, after years of restoration. 

Resembling a fine carpet, the vast mosaic covers 836 square metres (8,998 square feet) at the Hisham Palace, an Ummayad Islamic desert castle dating from the eighth century.

The images, seen on dozens of panels, include a lion attacking a deer to symbolise war and two gazelles which symbolise peace, as well as delicate floral and geometric designs.

Hisham Palace had lain forgotten for centuries until it was rediscovered in the 19th century, and explored in the 1930s. It was then that the mosaic was uncovered beneath the dust.

But it still remained neglected until five years ago when the site was closed to visitors as a $12 million Japan-funded restoration effort was launched.

“This mosaic contains more than five million pieces of stone from Palestine which have a natural and distinctive colour,” Saleh Tawafsha, the under-secretary at the Palestinian tourism and antiquities ministry, told AFP during the unveiling ceremony.

He said he hoped that the restoration will draw tourists to Jericho, which lies in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The Hisham Palace near the Dead Sea covers about 150 acres (60 hectares) and comprises baths and an agricultural estate.

The Ummayad Dynasty lasted from 660 to 750 AD.

For humans, truffles — distant cousins of mushrooms in the fungi kingdom — are revered as culinary gold, giving pasta or risotto dishes an elegant, savory twist when shaved or grated on top.

A new study published Thursday in Current Biology shows that ground-dwelling birds of Patagonia also seek out and disperse the ecologically important tubers, passing viable spores through their feces.

Matthew Smith, senior author of the study and a plant pathology professor at the University of Florida, told AFP he and collaborators from Chile and Argentina stumbled on the finding as they were documenting the fungi of the region.

Truffles are normally found under the leaf litter, just above the soil.

“We would find evidence of those being uncovered, and then sometimes evidence that they had scratch marks, like what you see when chickens are scratching for things,” he said.

What’s more, ground foraging birds of remote, undisturbed regions started following the researchers around as they sought truffles.

“When you’re looking for truffles, that disturbs the leaf litter, and they’ll follow behind you and like look through the parts you disturbed.”

The team also found that the truffles of the region were similar in size and shape as fruit — one of the most common food sources for birds, in addition to seeds and invertebrates — which suggested the fungi might have evolved to look attractive to birds. 

At one point, first author Marcos Caiafa even saw a bird eat a chunk of truffle in front of him.

To confirm their hypothesis, the team began collecting the droppings of chucao tapaculos and black-throated huet-huets and tested them for DNA.

Truffle DNA was found in 42 percent of chucao tapaculo and 38 percent of huet-huet feces. 

They also examined the bird poop using fluorescent microscopy, to confirm that the spores were viable, suggesting that the birds were responsible for spreading them. 

Truffles are known to depend on mammals, such as pigs, to spread their spores, as opposed to mushrooms, which can shoot off their spores.

Smith explained that, apart from adding to the body of scientific knowledge, the new finding has important implications.

Truffles are mostly mycorrhizal fungi, which means they have a relationship with trees, helping them take up nutrients in exchange for sugars.

“These trees are the foundation of that ecosystem, and these fungi are symbiotic with the trees. So it’s now a three-way connection between birds, fungi and the trees,” he said.

From a conservation perspective, the ecosystems of Patagonia are under increasing pressure. 

Birds’ movements become more restricted when disturbed by people, and that could in turn impact the fungi, the trees, and the wider ecosystem.

Smith said that while the discovery was made in South America, it’s likely that ground-dwelling birds are involved in spreading truffles in other regions, such as North America — but the technologies to confirm this weren’t readily available until recently.

China on Thursday submitted a renewed emissions cutting plan that promised to peak carbon pollution before 2030 but which experts said stopped short of the radical decarbonisation required of the world’s largest polluter.

Beijing’s new submission to the United Nations, just days before the COP26 climate summit, confirmed its goal to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060 and slash its emissions intensity — the amount of emissions per unit of economic output — by more than 65 percent.

Analysts said these amounted to minor improvements on China’s existing plan and were far from sufficient from the country responsible for more than a quarter of all carbon pollution.

As part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, all countries agreed to slash emissions in order to limit temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius and to strive for a safer 1.5-C warming cap.

Under the accord’s “ratchet” mechanism, signatories agreed to submit new and more ambitious emissions cutting plans — known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs — every five years.

Last year, President Xi Jinping indicated that China would achieve carbon neutrality around 2060 and peak emissions around 2030.

But China had been a major NDC holdout, missing several submission deadlines during the year-long delay of COP26 due to the pandemic. 

It was hoped its new plan could build momentum ahead of the summit in Glasgow, which begins on Sunday. 

According to the document, published on the UN’s climate change website, China will increase its share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to 25 percent, up from the 20 percent previously pledged. 

It also plans to increase its forest stock by six billion cubic metres compared with 2005 levels and “bring its total installed capacity of wind and solar power to over 1.2 billion kilowatts by 2030”.

However it was not immediately clear how Beijing plans to draw down its emissions in line with what science says is needed to avoid catastrophic levels of heating this century.

– ‘Casts a shadow’ –

“China’s new climate commitment under the Paris agreement turns the 2060 carbon neutrality target and CO2 emissions peak before 2030 into new formal pledges, but doesn’t shed more light on the emissions trajectory over this decade,” Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, said on Twitter.

Li Shuo, an analyst with Greenpeace Asia, said China’s new NDC “missed an opportunity to demonstrate ambition”.

“China’s decision on its NDC casts a shadow on the global climate effort,” he tweeted.

“The planet can’t afford this being the last word. Beijing needs to come up with stronger implementation plans to ensure an emission peak before 2025.”

China has been accused of sidestepping calls to stop building new coal-fired power plants, the single largest source of carbon pollution.

Nick Mabey, chief executive of the E3G environmental think tank, said China’s new emissions plan was virtually “unchanged” from previous promises.

“This lowers other countries’ confidence in the delivery of China’s deep decarbonisation pathway,” he said. 

The UN says greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut nearly in half by 2030 to keep 1.5C within reach.

This week it said countries’ latest pledges put Earth on course to warm 2.7C this century.

Its Emissions Gap report also called on countries to start slashing emissions immediately and to align their net-zero plans with the 1.5C pathway.