AFP UK

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Tuesday unveiled a new cabinet including a leading climate activist as environment minister as well as new defense and diplomacy chiefs, as he seeks to reinvigorate his team for a third mandate.

At a ceremony in Ottawa, longtime climate activist and outgoing heritage minister Steven Guilbeault was named environment minister — days ahead of the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow.

Anita Anand was tapped to lead a military plagued by sexual misconduct allegations, and Melanie Joly was promoted to foreign minister.

The reshuffled team consists of 38 ministers in total, with an equal number of women and men. Chrystia Freeland, it was previously announced, keeps her dual roles as deputy prime minister and finance minister.

Trudeau was returned to power in September at the helm, once again, of a minority liberal government, with party standings in the House of Commons almost exactly the same as prior to the snap election.

It was not the outcome he’d hoped for, with strong support for his Liberals for their solid pandemic response suddenly dissipating midway through the campaign as voter fatigue with his administration — first elected in a landslide in 2015 — set in.

The cabinet shuffle — which saw several ministers dropped including former astronaut Marc Garneau and others shuffled to new posts — was hoped to breathe new life into his beleaguered Liberal party.

Earlier this month, Trudeau outlined his new government’s priorities, including accelerating climate actions, Canada’s pandemic exit, and continuing reconciliation with Canada’s more than 600 indigenous tribes.

He’d said at his first post-election news conference in early October that his minority Liberal government had been given a mandate “to move even stronger, even faster on the big things that Canadians really want.”

He listed, as examples, measures to fight climate change, further boost Canada’s Covid vaccination rates — already among the highest in the world — and bolster Canada’s economic recovery.

He also said to expect a decision soon on whether to ban Huawei equipment from Canada’s 5G wireless networks, after the United States and other key allies did so, as Ottawa resets its foreign policy.

Countries’ latest climate plans will deliver just a tiny percentage of the emissions cuts needed to limit global heating to 1.5C, the United Nations said on Tuesday in a damning assessment ahead of the COP26 climate summit.

Just days before the Glasgow meeting, which is being billed as crucial for the long-term viability of the Paris climate deal, the UN’s Environment Programme said that national plans to reduce carbon pollution amounted to “weak promises, not yet delivered”. 

In its annual Emissions Gap assessment, UNEP calculates the gulf between the emissions set to be released by countries and the level needed to limit temperature rises to 1.5C — the most ambitious Paris Agreement goal.

The summit’s organisers say they want countries to commit to keeping Earth on course for the 1.5C goal through redoubled pledges to decarbonise their economies. 

But according to UNEP, even the most up-to-date and ambitious plans from around 120 countries puts the world on track to warm 2.7C.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Tuesday’s report showed that the world was “still on track for climate catastrophe”.

“As world leaders prepare for COP26, this report is another thundering wake-up call. How many do we need?”

Under the 2015 Paris deal, signatories are required to submit new emissions-cutting plans — known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs — every five years, each more ambitious than the last.

UNEP said that most recent commitments would shave 7.5 percent off previously predicted 2030 emissions levels. 

To keep on a 1.5C trajectory, a 55-percent reduction is needed, it said.

A 30-percent cut is needed for 2C of warming, a threshold the Paris deal commits nations to keep temperatures “well below”.

“To stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C, we have eight years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.

– ‘Imminent peril’ –

UNEP said that the Covid-19 pandemic led to an “unprecedented” 5.4-percent drop in global emissions in 2020. 

However, even this was not enough to narrow the gap between humanity’s current emissions trajectory and a 1.5C world. 

Putting the challenge into stark perspective, it said that countries needed to slash CO2 and its equivalent in other greenhouse gases by an additional 28 billion tonnes by 2030; carbon dioxide emissions alone are projected to hit 33 billion tonnes in 2021.

Report co-author Anne Ohloff told AFP that it showed there had been “some progress” on emissions since the Paris Agreement.

“The new (NDC) commitments shave off 4 Gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent annually by 2030 compared to the last ones,” she said. 

“But it’s far from sufficient, of course. Overall we are very far from where we should be.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in August said that Earth could hit the 1.5C threshold as soon as 2030 and be consistently above it by mid-century.

The report on Tuesday said that even if all net-zero pledges were delivered in full, there was a 66-percent chance that temperature rises could be limited to 2.2C.

“There is no appetite for reducing fossil fuel consumption globally at the rate required to meet our climate goals,” said Myles Allen, professor of Geosystem Science at the University of Oxford.

This year’s Emissions Gap report focused on the role in global heating played by methane, the most potent greenhouse gas.

It found that existing technical measures could reduce man-made methane emissions by 20 percent per year, with little or no additional cost to industry.

It also said that the plans of many of the 49 countries that have made net-zero pledges remained “vague and not reflected in NDCs”.

“Overall, a net zero goal must be accompanied by immediate policy action towards ambitious 2030 targets,” said Joanna Depledge, from the Cambridge Centre for Environment, Energy and Natural Resource Governance. 

“Otherwise, it is mere virtue signalling.”

Countries’ latest climate plans will deliver just a tiny percentage of the emissions cuts needed to limit global heating to 1.5C, the United Nations said on Tuesday in a damning assessment ahead of the COP26 climate summit.

Just days before the Glasgow meeting, which is being billed as crucial for the long-term viability of the Paris climate deal, the UN’s Environment Programme said that national plans to reduce carbon pollution amounted to “weak promises, not yet delivered”. 

In its annual Emissions Gap assessment, UNEP calculates the gulf between the emissions set to be released by countries and the level needed to limit temperature rises to 1.5C — the most ambitious Paris Agreement goal.

The summit’s organisers say they want countries to commit to keeping Earth on course for the 1.5C goal through redoubled pledges to decarbonise their economies. 

But according to UNEP, even the most up-to-date and ambitious plans from around 120 countries puts the world on track to warm 2.7C.

UN chief Antonio Guterres said Tuesday’s report showed that the world was “still on track for climate catastrophe”.

“As world leaders prepare for COP26, this report is another thundering wake-up call. How many do we need?”

Under the 2015 Paris deal, signatories are required to submit new emissions-cutting plans — known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs — every five years, each more ambitious than the last.

UNEP said that most recent commitments would shave 7.5 percent off previously predicted 2030 emissions levels. 

To keep on a 1.5C trajectory, a 55-percent reduction is needed, it said.

A 30-percent cut is needed for 2C of warming, a threshold the Paris deal commits nations to keep temperatures “well below”.

“To stand a chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C, we have eight years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions,” said UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen.

“Eight years to make the plans, put in place the policies, implement them and ultimately deliver the cuts.”

– ‘Imminent peril’ –

UNEP said that the Covid-19 pandemic led to an “unprecedented” 5.4-percent drop in global emissions in 2020. 

However, even this was not enough to narrow the gap between humanity’s current emissions trajectory and a 1.5C world. 

Putting the challenge into stark perspective, it said that countries needed to slash CO2 and its equivalent in other greenhouse gases by an additional 28 billion tonnes by 2030; carbon dioxide emissions alone are projected to hit 33 billion tonnes in 2021.

Report co-author Anne Ohloff told AFP that it showed there had been “some progress” on emissions since the Paris Agreement.

“The new (NDC) commitments shave off 4 Gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent annually by 2030 compared to the last ones,” she said. 

“But it’s far from sufficient, of course. Overall we are very far from where we should be.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in August said that Earth could hit the 1.5C threshold as soon as 2030 and be consistently above it by mid-century.

The report on Tuesday said that even if all net-zero pledges were delivered in full, there was a 66-percent chance that temperature rises could be limited to 2.2C.

“Even under this scenario, there is still more than 15 percent chance that global warming will exceed 2.5C by the end of the century, and just short of 5 percent chance that it will exceed 3C,” it said.

Ohloff called the findings “scary”.

“It reemphasises we need to go as low (emissions) as possible,” she said.

This year’s Emissions Gap report focused on the role in global heating played by methane, the most potent greenhouse gas.

It found that existing technical measures could reduce manmade methane emissions by 20 percent per year, with little or no additional cost to industry.

It also said that the plans of many of the 49 countries who have made net-zero pledges remained “vague and not reflected in NDCs”.

“The world has to wake up to the imminent peril we face as a species,” said Andersen.

The strange metal box hauled from the waves and onto the ship’s deck looks like a spaceship fished from a child’s imagination. 

But when scientist Clare Ostle opens it up and draws out the silk scrolls inside, she is looking for the telltale green glow from some of the most important creatures on Earth: plankton.

This is a Continuous Plankton Recorder, torpedo-like devices that for 90 years have been towed by merchant vessels and fishing boats on a vast network of routes.

They help researchers better understand the ocean by collecting some of its smallest inhabitants.

What they have seen is that as climate change heats the seas, plankton are on the move — with potentially profound consequences for both ocean life and humans.

Plankton — organisms carried on the tides — are the foundation of the marine food web.

But they are also part of an intricately balanced system that helps keep us all alive.

As well as helping produce much of the oxygen we breathe, they are a crucial part of the global carbon cycle.

“The big thing that we’re seeing is warming,” Ostle, coordinator of the Pacific CPR Survey, tells AFP as she demonstrates the plankton recorder off the coast of Plymouth in Britain.

The CPR Survey has documented a decisive shift of plankton towards both the poles in recent decades, as ocean currents change and many marine animals head for cooler areas.

Smaller warm water plankton are also replacing more nutritious cold water ones, often also with differing seasonal cycles, meaning the species that feed on them need to adapt or move too. 

“The big worry is when change happens so quickly that the ecosystem can’t recover,” says Ostle, adding that dramatic temperature spikes can lead “whole fisheries to collapse”.

With nearly half of humanity reliant on fish for some 20 percent of their animal protein, this could be devastating.

– Biological pump –

Plankton is a catch-all term from the Greek for “drifting” and encompasses everything from photosynthesising bacteria many times smaller than the width of a human hair, to jellyfish with long trailing tendrils. 

There are two main types: phytoplankton, diverse plant-like cells commonly called algae; and zooplankton, animals like krill and the larvae of fish, crabs and other marine creatures.

Phytoplankton photosynthesise using the sun’s rays to turn C02 into energy and oxygen. 

In fact, scientists estimate the seas produce around half the oxygen on Earth, and that is mostly thanks to phytoplankton.

They are also crucial to the ocean’s “biological carbon pump”, which helps the sea lock away at least a quarter of C02 emitted by burning fossil fuels.

While trees store carbon in wood and leaves, phytoplankton store it in their bodies.

It passes through the food web, with phytoplankton consumed by zooplankton which, in turn, are eaten by creatures from birds to whales.

“Pretty much everything you can think of in the sea at some stage of its life cycle will eat plankton,” says CPR Survey head David Johns.

When organic matter from dead plankton or their predators sinks to the ocean floor it takes carbon with it.

– ‘Escalating impacts’ – 

But scientists warn that climate change has stressed the system, with ocean temperatures rising, fewer nutrients reaching the upper part of the ocean from the deep and increased levels of C02 acidifying seawater.

Climate change has “exposed ocean and coastal ecosystems to conditions that are unprecedented over centuries to millennia with consequences for ocean-dwelling plants and animals around the world,” says the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a leaked draft report on climate impacts, due to be published next year, which predicts “escalating impacts on marine life”.

While phytoplankton are relatively resilient and will likely continue to shift territory as the seas warm, the IPCC expects that deteriorating conditions in the oceans will ultimately lead to an overall decline this century.

Average global phytoplankton biomass — a measure of total weight or quantity — is predicted to fall by around 1.8 to six percent, depending on the level of emissions.

But because of its outsized importance, even modest reductions can “amplify up the marine food web”, eventually leading to reductions in marine life by roughly five to 17 percent.

There could also be “changes in carbon cycling and carbon sequestration, as our plankton community changes” with smaller plankton potentially drawing down less C02, says plankton ecologist Abigail McQuatters-Gollop of Plymouth University. 

As global leaders prepare to meet at a crucial UN summit on climate change, the issue is a stark example of how accelerating human impacts are destabilising intricate life-sustaining systems.

– Thinking small –

Tackling this is not as simple as planting trees, McQuatters-Gollop notes.

But fishing sustainably, reducing pollutants and curbing C02 emissions can all help improve ocean health. 

In the past, she says conservation has focused on “the big things, the cute things, or the things that are directly worth money” — like whales, turtles and cod. 

But all rely on plankton.

While this “blindness” could be because they are microscopic, people can see plankton traces at the beach — in foam on waves, or the nighttime twinkle of bioluminescence.

Or on the children’s television show “SpongeBob SquarePants”, whose character Plankton is “the most famous plankton out there”, says McQuatters-Gollop. 

And when they “bloom” in vast numbers, plankton are visible from space, turning the water a startling emerald, or creating Van Gogh swirls of milky blue, in seasonal displays critical for ocean life.

Like land plants, phytoplankton need nutrients like nitrates, phosphates and iron to grow. 

But they can have too much of a good thing: The runoff of nitrogen-rich fertilisers is blamed for creating harmful algae blooms, like the glutinous “sea snot” off Turkey’s coast this year. 

These can poison marine life or choke oxygen out of the water and may be exacerbated by warming, warns the IPCC.

Meanwhile, research published in Nature last month found that iron carried in smoke from huge 2019 and 2020 wildfires in Australia sparked a giant swell of phytoplankton thousands of miles away, which could have sucked up substantial amounts of C02. 

Blooms can be seeded by nutrients from sand storms or volcanic eruptions and it is these “natural processes” that have inspired David King, founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge. 

King supports a hotly-debated idea to “fertilise” plankton blooms by sprinkling iron on the surface.

The theory is that this would not only help suck up more C02, but lead to a surge of ocean life, including eventually helping to increase whale populations that have been devastated by hunting.

More whales equals more whale poo, which is full of the nutrients plankton need to bloom, and King hopes could restore a “wonderful circular economy” in the seas.

A pilot project will try the technique in an area of the Arabian Sea carefully sealed off in a “vast plastic bag”, but King acknowledges that the idea raises fears of unintended consequences: “We certainly don’t want to de-oxygenate the oceans and I’m pretty confident we won’t.”

– Sea mysteries –

Ocean organisms have been photosynthesising for billions of years — long before land plants. But we still have much to learn about them.

It was only in the 1980s that scientists named the planktonic bacteria prochlorococcus, now thought to be the most abundant photosynthesiser on the planet.

Some “drifters” it turns out can swim, while others are masters of communal living. 

Take the partnership between corals and plankton — it is so important that when it breaks due to warming the corals bleach.

Or Acantharea, a single cell shaped like a snowflake that can gather photosynthesising algae and manipulate them into an energy-generating “battery pack”, says Johan Decelle, of the French research institute CNRS and the University of Grenoble Alpes.

They have been “overlooked” because they dissolve in the chemicals used by scientists to preserve samples. 

To study plankton under a high-resolution electron microscope, Decelle used to collect samples at the French coast and drive for hours back to Grenoble with them in a special cool box.  

But this year he worked with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory on a pioneering project bringing high-tech freezing virtually onto the beach.

This enables the study of these delicate organisms as close as possible to their natural environment. 

By contrast, Continuous Plankton Recorders end up mashing their samples into “roadkill”, says Ostle.

But the value of the survey, which began in 1931 to understand how plankton affected herring stocks, comes from decades of data.

Scientists have used it to look back to track climate changes and it played an important role in the recognition of microplastics.  

Ostle used CPR ships’ logs to show that “macroplastics” like shopping bags were already in the seas in the 1960s.

By the time it was awarded a Guinness World Record last year for the greatest distance sampled by a marine survey, it had studied the equivalent of 326 circumnavigations of the planet. 

From the boat in Plymouth, the water appears calm as sunlight slides across its surface. But every drop is teeming with life.

“There’s just a whole galaxy of things going on under there,” Ostle says. 

Indigenous residents of low-lying islands off northern Australia filed a landmark lawsuit Tuesday aimed at forcing the government to protect them from climate change through deeper cuts to carbon emissions.

The Torres Strait Islanders say rising sea levels represent an existential threat to their homelands and culture, putting them “on the frontline of the climate crisis”.

Lawyers for traditional land owners from Boigu and Saibai — among the worst-impacted islands — want the Federal Court to order the government “to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a level that will prevent Torres Strait Islanders from becoming climate refugees”.

It is believed to be the first such climate change class action launched by Indigenous Australians.

The lawsuit comes on the same day Australia’s conservative government unveiled a 2050 net zero target, with a light-on-detail plan that attracted criticism for relying heavily on undeveloped technologies and carbon offsets.

Fewer than 5,000 people live in the Torres Strait, also known as Zenadth Kes, a collection of about 274 islands between Australia’s mainland and Papua New Guinea.

The lawsuit argues some islands are expected to become uninhabitable if global temperatures rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned could be breached by 2030.

Under current global commitments, the world is on track to warm 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, according to the United Nations.

Plaintiff Paul Kabai, who lives on Saibai island, said worsening flooding and salt-ruined soils had left his people facing a potentially dire future.

“Becoming climate refugees means losing everything: our homes, our culture, our stories and our identity,” he said.

“If you take away our homelands, we don’t know who we are. We have a cultural responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The lawsuit comes after eight Australian teenagers scored a major victory in May when a federal judge agreed that expanding a coal mine near Sydney would cause them climate-related harm.

Australians and people around the world are increasingly turning to the courts in an effort to prod slow-moving governments into climate action.

In 2019, a group of Torres Strait Islanders lodged a separate complaint with the United Nations accusing the authorities of violating their human rights by failing to tackle climate change.

Australia has asked for that complaint to be dismissed, but UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva has yet to officially respond.

Hoof prints in the mud, tree bark nibbled away: even if the newest residents of Romania’s Carpathian mountain forest shy away from visitors, their traces are there for those who know where to look.

They are signs of the success of a project to reintroduce bison to this region after a centuries-long absence, key to keeping the hairy giants off lists of critically endangered species.

Bison had all but been driven out of Europe by hunting and the destruction of its habitats, but their reappearance in Romania has brought back a key component of the region’s ecosystem.

Under gentle autumn sunshine on the edge of a centuries-old wood, young forest warden Matei Miculescu is on the lookout for members of the Carpathian herd. 

The animals can be hard to spot, having been tempted further into the forest by the abundant vegetation and the possibility of extending their habitat.

Miculescu says the animals are thriving in the forest, in contrast to captivity which “creates the risk of inbreeding” and weakens their chances of survival.

Nowadays, around 6,000 bison, Europe’s largest mammal and a distant cousin of the American buffalo, can be found on the continent.

Most of them are on the Polish-Belarussian border where efforts to revive the population got underway in the 1950s.

Romania welcomed bison back in 2014 in the southwestern Armenis region, more than 200 years after it was last seen there.

Born in captivity in other parts of Europe — where they had been given names like Kiwi, Bilbo and Mildred — they were transferred to Romania in 16 separate stages.

– Cutting human links –

Thanks to successful reproduction in the wild, “around 105 bison now live freely in the Tarcu mountains and have settled in well,” says Marina Druga, head of the project led jointly by the WWF and Rewilding Europe.

“In the past two years, there haven’t been any deaths in their ranks,” says Druga, explaining that the goal is to get to a population “of 250 individuals in five years’ time”.

The programme is well established: first the animals spend several weeks being re-acclimatised to life in the wild and are only then released and left to fend for themselves.

They can currently be found making use of around 8,000 hectares in a protected area which stretches over 59,000 hectares.

The southern Carpathians present ideal conditions: “a vast region with a thinly spread human population and no intensive agriculture,” says Wanda Olech-Piasecka from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Since 2014 there have been 38 bison calves born in the area.

“Without them, the project would have no future,” says Miculescu, who recognises each of the creatures by their horns of the colour of their fur.

But those running the project have resisted giving the calves names.

Since they have been born in the wild, all links with humans should be cut, explains Druga.

– Architects of the forest –

The WWF says the next step to make the population viable in the long term will be to introduce bison into other parts of the Carpathians and establish a network of populations.

Over the long term, the animals need a large habitat in order avoid conflict over territory with human populations or within their own herds.

Along with benefitting the bison themselves, advocates say that this example of “rewilding” is also a boon for the wider ecosystem, bringing benefits for some 600 species from microorganisms to large carnivores.

“They change the landscape and architecture of the forest by stopping the spread of invasive tree species, spreading seeds for hundreds of plants and creating paths smaller animals use to access food,” explains Druga. 

Weaker or sick members of the herd can themselves serve as prey for wolves or bears, who in turn will be less likely to stray into human settlements in search of food, a problem which has grown in recent years in Romania.

Even those who watch them closely have sometimes been surprised by the effects the bison’s presence can have.

“Birds collect discarded bits of fur to isolate their nests while frogs can use bison hoof prints to jump from one pond to another,” says Miculescu.

Hoof prints in the mud, tree bark nibbled away: even if the newest residents of Romania’s Carpathian mountain forest shy away from visitors, their traces are there for those who know where to look.

They are signs of the success of a project to reintroduce bison to this region after a centuries-long absence, key to keeping the hairy giants off lists of critically endangered species.

Bison had all but been driven out of Europe by hunting and the destruction of its habitats, but their reappearance in Romania has brought back a key component of the region’s ecosystem.

Under gentle autumn sunshine on the edge of a centuries-old wood, young forest warden Matei Miculescu is on the lookout for members of the Carpathian herd. 

The animals can be hard to spot, having been tempted further into the forest by the abundant vegetation and the possibility of extending their habitat.

Miculescu says the animals are thriving in the forest, in contrast to captivity which “creates the risk of inbreeding” and weakens their chances of survival.

Nowadays, around 6,000 bison, Europe’s largest mammal and a distant cousin of the American buffalo, can be found on the continent.

Most of them are on the Polish-Belarussian border where efforts to revive the population got underway in the 1950s.

Romania welcomed bison back in 2014 in the southwestern Armenis region, more than 200 years after it was last seen there.

Born in captivity in other parts of Europe — where they had been given names like Kiwi, Bilbo and Mildred — they were transferred to Romania in 16 separate stages.

– Cutting human links –

Thanks to successful reproduction in the wild, “around 105 bison now live freely in the Tarcu mountains and have settled in well,” says Marina Druga, head of the project led jointly by the WWF and Rewilding Europe.

“In the past two years, there haven’t been any deaths in their ranks,” says Druga, explaining that the goal is to get to a population “of 250 individuals in five years’ time”.

The programme is well established: first the animals spend several weeks being re-acclimatised to life in the wild and are only then released and left to fend for themselves.

They can currently be found making use of around 8,000 hectares in a protected area which stretches over 59,000 hectares.

The southern Carpathians present ideal conditions: “a vast region with a thinly spread human population and no intensive agriculture,” says Wanda Olech-Piasecka from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Since 2014 there have been 38 bison calves born in the area.

“Without them, the project would have no future,” says Miculescu, who recognises each of the creatures by their horns of the colour of their fur.

But those running the project have resisted giving the calves names.

Since they have been born in the wild, all links with humans should be cut, explains Druga.

– Architects of the forest –

The WWF says the next step to make the population viable in the long term will be to introduce bison into other parts of the Carpathians and establish a network of populations.

Over the long term, the animals need a large habitat in order avoid conflict over territory with human populations or within their own herds.

Along with benefitting the bison themselves, advocates say that this example of “rewilding” is also a boon for the wider ecosystem, bringing benefits for some 600 species from microorganisms to large carnivores.

“They change the landscape and architecture of the forest by stopping the spread of invasive tree species, spreading seeds for hundreds of plants and creating paths smaller animals use to access food,” explains Druga. 

Weaker or sick members of the herd can themselves serve as prey for wolves or bears, who in turn will be less likely to stray into human settlements in search of food, a problem which has grown in recent years in Romania.

Even those who watch them closely have sometimes been surprised by the effects the bison’s presence can have.

“Birds collect discarded bits of fur to isolate their nests while frogs can use bison hoof prints to jump from one pond to another,” says Miculescu.

Asia suffered its hottest year on record in 2020, the United Nations said Tuesday ahead of the COP26 summit, with extreme weather taking a heavy toll on the continent’s development.

In its annual “State of the Climate in Asia” report, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said every part of the region had been affected.

“Extreme weather and climate change impacts across Asia in 2020 caused the loss of life of thousands of people, displaced millions of others and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, while wreaking a heavy toll on infrastructure and ecosystems,” the WMO said.

“Sustainable development is threatened, with food and water insecurity, health risks and environmental degradation on the rise.”

The report comes days before COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow from Sunday to November 12.

The report also laid bare the total annual average losses due to climate-related hazards.

China suffered an estimated $238 billion, followed by India at $87 billion, Japan with $83 billion and South Korea on $24 billion.

But when the size of the economy is considered, the average annual losses are expected to be as high as 7.9 percent of gross domestic product for Tajikistan, 5.9 percent for Cambodia and 5.8 percent for Laos.

– Prolonged displacement –

Increased heat and humidity are forecast to lead to an effective loss of outdoor working hours across the continent, with a potential cost of many billions of dollars.

“Weather and climate hazards, especially floods, storms, and droughts, had significant impacts in many countries of the region,” said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.

“Combined, these impacts take a significant toll on long-term sustainable development.”

Many weather and climate-related displacements in Asia are prolonged, with people unable to return home or integrate locally, the report said.

In 2020 floods and storms affected approximately 50 million people in Asia, resulting in more than 5,000 fatalities.

This is below the annual average of the last two decades (158 million people affected and about 15,500 fatalities) “and is testimony to the success of early warning systems in many countries in Asia”, with around seven in 10 people covered.

Asia’s warmest year on record saw the mean temperature 1.39 degrees Celsius above the 1981–2010 average.

The 38.0 C registered at Verkhoyansk in Russia is provisionally the highest known temperature anywhere north of the Arctic Circle.

– Glaciers shrinking –

In 2020, average sea surface temperatures reached record high values in the Indian, Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

Sea surface temperatures and ocean warming in and around Asia are increasing more than the global average.

They have been warming at more than triple the average in the Arabian sea, and parts of the Arctic Ocean.

Arctic sea ice minimum extent (after the summer melt) in 2020 was the second lowest on the satellite record since 1979.

There are approximately 100,000 square kilometres of glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau and in the Himalayas — the largest volumes of ice outside the polar regions and the source of 10 major Asian rivers.

“Glacier retreat is accelerating and it is projected that glacier mass will decrease by 20 percent to 40 percent by 2050, affecting the lives and livelihoods of about 750 million people in the region,” the report said.

“This has major ramifications for global sea level, regional water cycles and local hazards such as landslides and avalanches.”

A quarter of Asia’s mangroves are in Bangladesh. However, the tropical storm-exposed country’s mangroves decreased by 19 percent from 1992 to 2019, the report said.

Coal-rich Australia unveiled a much-delayed 2050 net zero emissions target Tuesday, in a plan that pointedly dodged thorny details or near-term goals ahead of a landmark UN climate summit.

Widely seen as a climate laggard, Australia is one of the world’s largest coal and gas exporters.

For the last eight years, its conservative government has resisted action to reduce emissions, routinely approving new coal projects and peddling scepticism about climate change.

Under domestic and international pressure, Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday announced a shift in approach and acknowledged the “world is changing”.

Australians want policy that “does the right thing on climate change”, he said, adding the phenomenon “is real, it’s happening. We understand it and we recognise it.”

Just how Australia will get to net zero by 2050 carbon emissions remains unclear, with the government refusing to release its modelling.

The plan would invest US$15 billion in low-emission technologies over the next decade, but it also leans heavily on unproven technologies and carbon offsets, which critics deride as an accounting gimmick.

And Morrison was keen to stress he was not dropping long-running support for the country’s lucrative fossil fuel industry.

“It will not shut down our coal or gas production or exports,” Morrison told a press conference. “It will not cost jobs, not in farming, mining or gas.”

While backing away from demands for more ambitious 2030 targets, Morrison said he expects Australia to “meet and beat” the previously agreed goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent on 2005 levels.

He said Australia was now projected to cut emissions 30-35 percent by 2030.

“That is something we actually think we are going to achieve. The actions of Australia speak louder than the words about us,” he added.

– ‘Sold a pup’ –

The announcement comes just days before Morrison departs for next month’s United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Australia’s reluctance to act had been criticised by close allies such as the United States and Britain, as well as Pacific island neighbours that are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

The coalition government has also found itself increasingly out of step with Australians’ attitudes as they suffered a series of climate-worsened droughts, bushfires and floods.

A 2021 poll by the Lowy Institute think tank found 78 percent of Australians back a 2050 net zero target, while 63 percent support a national ban on new coal mines.

The country’s greatest natural tourist drawcard, the Great Barrier Reef, has been badly damaged by waves of mass coral bleaching as ocean temperatures rise.

Mark Kenny, a professor at the Australian Studies Institute in Canberra, said domestic and international pressures had made it “more and more unviable for the coalition to cling to its essentially denialist position”.

But Kenny warned Australia’s announcement amounted to little more than a shift in rhetoric for the resource-reliant nation.

“This commitment is not significant in reality. I think if the world takes this seriously, they have been sold a pup,” he told AFP.

Tuesday’s 2050 commitment trails behind more ambitious announcements from Australian states and corporations, including mining giant Rio Tinto.

Australia’s major coal customers such as India and China have already indicated they will phase out thermal coal, and technological advances have made the future of metallurgical coal — used to make steel — increasingly uncertain.

Ahead of the 12-day Glasgow summit, the UN says more than 130 countries have set or are considering a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, a target it says is “imperative” to safeguard a livable climate.

A nature reserve near the capital of war-scarred Libya that has long been a sanctuary for hyenas, rare birds and plants is now under threat due to climate change and human activity.

A two-hour drive east of Tripoli into the Nafusa mountain range, the Ashaafean park was added to UNESCO’s list of biosphere reserves last month.

It includes dry woodland, grassland and desert on the edge of the Sahara — ideal habitats for the increasingly rare houbara bustard, a large bird.

“Ongoing climate change, the associated lack of rainfall and long waves of drought in the summer have made the reserve vulnerable to repeated fires in recent years,” said Anas al-Qiyadi, of the Libyan Wildlife Trust.

Along with unauthorised logging and construction, these factors have “damaged the diversity of flora and fauna,” he said.

But Qiyadi is hoping that the UNESCO listing will help protect the park.

“The biosphere reserve’s 83,060-hectare (around 205,000-acre) core area is home to a variety of rare and/or endangered species,” the UN cultural agency said on its website.

They include 350 plant species, some medicinal or aromatic, as well as threatened birds, reptiles and mammals.

Some 65,000 people also live in the wider park area.

– Decades of violence –

Ashaafean was designated as a nature reserve under dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 1978.

But in the decade of violence that followed Kadhafi’s 2011 overthrow in a NATO-backed revolt, the fragile and divided Libyan state has provided little protection to its nine nature reserves, increasingly threatened by human activity.

Qiyadi said several initiatives were underway to protect the reserves, including a programme to breed endangered tortoises in captivity and release them into the wild.

“A few days ago, we released 36 endangered tortoises into the (Ashaafean) park,” he said.

Volunteers have also signed up to water trees throughout Libya’s long periods of drought, Qiyadi said, adding that irrigation networks alone were not enough.

“Because the water source is a long way from the reserve, we and a group of volunteers have started campaigns to irrigate and plant more trees, but that needs ongoing attention.”

– ‘International attention’ –

Drought and deadly forest fires hit several countries across the Mediterranean this year, notably in neighbouring Algeria.

Libya was largely spared this time, but since 2015 it has seen huge fires that have killed many endangered animals and trees over a century old.

Ashaafean is the first Libyan site to be categorised as a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

The designation aims to promote sustainable development, protect ecosystems and help support research and education.

Tareq al-Jdeidy, a scientist at the University of Tripoli who led a campaign for the listing, said it was a step towards better protection for one of Libya’s most precious reserves.

The designation means “it will attract attention internationally from organisations focusing on the environment, plant and animal life — there will be studies on how to develop it,” he said.

According to UNESCO, most of the reserve’s residents make a living from traditional sustainable agriculture as well as wood gathering and beekeeping.

“The region is known for the quality of its olives and oil,” it said when announcing the designation.

Jdeidy hopes the park will both help the local economy and serve as an example of efforts to combat desertification.

“It will support local residents both directly and indirectly through development programmes linked to the reserve,” he said.