AFP UK

An Asian deer’s comeback from the brink of extinction marks a rare success for China’s conservation efforts, which have long faced criticism for focusing on only a handful of flagship species.

Pere David’s deer were on the verge of disappearing towards the end of the 19th century, threatened by hunting for their meat and a loss of wetland habitat.

But after an extraordinary tale of survival — which involved being smuggled to Europe and hidden from wartime bombing raids, before finally returning to China — its population has grown to several thousand.

The comeback is a “remarkable tale of sheer luck and dedication of a small group of conservationists in China and abroad,” said Zhou Jinfeng, whose NGO helped bring the creatures back from Europe. 

News of the success comes as Beijing seeks to play a more prominent role in international conservation, with China this week hosting a key UN conservation summit.

At the opening of the meeting, President Xi Jinping pledged $233 million to a new fund to “support the cause of biodiversity conservation in developing countries”.

But experts say tales like that of the Pere David’s deer remain rare, with decades of breakneck growth exacting a heavy toll on China’s biodiversity.

While the country has made significant strides in protecting its best-known species, such as giant pandas and elephants, critics say it has done far worse in safeguarding many other creatures.

From 1970 to 2010, almost half of China’s land-based vertebrates vanished, according to the conservation charity WWF.

The country now has more than a thousand species that are fast disappearing due to developers encroaching on habitats, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

And despite designating nearly a fifth of the country as protected areas, activities such as illicit mining and logging have fragmented reserves and left endangered animals marooned in “forest islands” without much room to forage or find mates.

China’s poor climate record — it is the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter, with the economy still largely powered by polluting coal — has also put further pressure on animal populations.

– ‘China is home’ –

The deer are named after Pere Armand David, a French missionary and zoologist who spotted what was believed to be the only herd of the creatures at the imperial hunting ground in Beijing.

In 1895, a flood nearly wiped them out, and five years later the hunting ground was occupied by German troops who shot and ate the remaining deer — resulting in their extinction in China.

But some of the creatures had already been smuggled to Europe, and several were bought by British politician Herbrand Russell from the Berlin Zoo. 

He bred them on his estate, although he was forced to move his herd several times during World War II to protect it from bombing raids. All Pere David’s deer alive today are descendants of this herd, according to the WWF.

It was not until 1985 that the creatures made their way back to China, when 22 were returned as a goodwill gesture during negotiations as Britain prepared to hand back Hong Kong to Beijing.

Today, they are back in the imperial hunting ground south of the Chinese capital, where about 200 animals happily frolic in mud by the side of a lake in a semi-wild conservation site.

Their captive population is now about 8,000, according to official figures, although experts warn of future risks. 

The population lacks genetic diversity, meaning they are more vulnerable to disease, have a shorter life span and suffer more miscarriages, said Bai Jiade and a group of other conservationists in a letter published in the journal Science this year.

“Moreover, there is no master plan for Pere David’s deer conservation at the national level,” said Bai, director of the Beijing Pere David’s deer Ecological Research Centre.

But Zhou is optimistic. Small groups of the deer are now being released back into the wild, and sightings are being reported around the country.

“The food, the climate and the environment all suit them,” said Zhou.

“China is their home.” 

In speeches and communiques from top finance officials at the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank this week, one word was ubiquitous: climate. 

Leaders of the institutions and government ministers pledged action to meet the global climate goals of keeping warning below 1.5 degrees Celsius and reaching net zero emissions by 2050, with an eye towards next month’s COP26 climate change summit.

“I’m afraid it is time to roll up our sleeves and detail our plan of actions,” Britain’s Prince Charles said at a World Bank event Thursday.

“With action on climate change, biodiversity loss and a just transition more urgent than ever, I can only encourage us all to get to work and solve this problem.”

But behind the rhetoric lies the harsh reality of the extent of the work left to do to meet the goals, and the rancor around the issue.

Washington leaned on multilateral lenders worldwide to step up financing of climate friendly projects, even as activists launched a salvo at the World Bank president.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest asset manager warned that expensive investments are necessary to prevent catastrophe. 

“Rich countries must put more taxpayer money to work in driving the net-zero transition abroad,” BlackRock chief Larry Fink wrote in The New York Times on Wednesday. 

Reaching the net-zero emissions goal will require $1 trillion a year in investments aimed at poor countries, which Fink estimates would need $100 billion in yearly subsidies to be viable.

“While the figure seems daunting, especially as the world is recovering from the Covid pandemic, a failure to invest now will lead to greater costs later,” he said.

– ‘Personnel is policy’ –

The meetings held semi-virtually in Washington came amid growing alarm over what unchecked climate change will do to the planet.

The World Bank last month in a disturbing report warned that reduced agricultural output, water scarcity, rising sea levels and other adverse effects of climate change could cause up to 216 million people to leave their homes and migrate within their own countries by 2050.

An IMF study estimated that direct and indirect subsidies of fossil fuels added up to $5.9 trillion or about 6.8 percent of global GDP in 2020, and helped undercut climate goals by keeping gas cheap.

While officials at the two Washington-based multilateral lenders insisted they are razor focused on climate change, not all were convinced.

On Thursday, 77 advocacy groups asked for World Bank President David Malpass to step aside.

Malpass has emphasized the World’s Bank’s climate investment and said it provides half of all multilateral lending towards such projects — a huge change from years past when the development lender financed controversial projects, criticized for their environmental impact.

But the groups said that since the 2015 Paris climate accord, the institution has steered $12 billion towards fossil fuel.

“Personnel is policy: The World Bank needs leadership that will support countries with real green and inclusive development pathways,” said Luisa Galvao of Friends of the Earth US, which signed the petition.

– Leaning on international banks –

The actions of the United States during the meetings were closely watched, since Washington hold the most voting power at the organizations, but the world’s largest economy also is a major carbon emitter.

President Joe Biden however has promised a government-wide offensive to tackle climate change. 

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this week convened leaders of several multilateral lenders — including the World Bank and developments banks in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa — and pressed them to dedicate more capital towards projects intended to mitigate climate change.

She also announced that her department would study how climate change is affecting communities and households in the United States, which this year alone has seen deadly winter storms strike Texas and the Midwest, wildfires roast California and successive hurricanes pummel the East Coast. 

But while the White House now has a greater emphasis on addressing what Yellen called an “existential threat,” agreement among the greater US political class on what to do about it remains elusive.

Biden has proposed two spending bills in Congress that could direct historic sums of money towards improving the country’s climate resiliency and cutting emissions, but they are mired in the rancorous and divided US Congress.

The population of California sea lions is down dramatically due to climate change, but in one natural refuge area off the coast of northwest Mexico, they are doing well and delighting tourists who dare to swim with them.

The number of this species of sea lion in Los Islotes, located in the Gulf of California — a finger-shaped body of turquoise water between the Baja California peninsula and the Mexican mainland — has grown from 500 to 700 in 10 years, said Hiram Rosales Nanduca, a researcher from the Autonomous University of Southern Baja California.

It is one of 13 colonies of this kind of sea lion identified in the gulf, which is also known as the Sea of Cortez.

“The only colony that not only has remained stable but has increased slightly is that of Los Islotes,” Rosales told AFP.

Otherwise, the population of Zalophus californianus — their scientific name — in the Gulf of California has dropped by 65 percent from 1991 to 2019. It went from 45,000 to 15,000 animals because of an increase in the temperature of the water, said the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education, which is located in Baja California.

The trick at Los Islotes is to restrict human activities such as fishing and tourism. There, the sea lions have a sanctuary where they can rest and reproduce, said Rosales.

Indeed, tour operators suspend visits during the mating season so as not to disturb the animals.

Outside that season, human visitors can set out on a tour boat and even swim with these grayish-brown sea lions that sport long moustaches and swim equally well on their backs and tummies.

“It is a little scary, but I got used to it and it was really cool,” said Esmeralda Fonseca, a US tourist who swam with the sea lions along with a group of girlfriends in their 20s.

Adult California sea lions tend to be territorial and keep their distance from people, but young ones like to get close to humans.

“They are interesting, playful and fun,” said Jacqueline Ojeda, a tour guide.

Tourists can also see rock formations, sea birds and — with a bit of luck — dolphins, orcas and whales, depending on the season.

Ojeda said the population of California sea lions has grown, “and I think this is good, but it can improve. We need to be more responsible in taking care of them.”

Los Islotes is part of a Gulf of California protected area that has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2005.  

The population of California sea lions is down dramatically due to climate change, but in one natural refuge area off the coast of northwest Mexico, they are doing well and delighting tourists who dare to swim with them.

The number of this species of sea lion in Los Islotes, located in the Gulf of California — a finger-shaped body of turquoise water between the Baja California peninsula and the Mexican mainland — has grown from 500 to 700 in 10 years, said Hiram Rosales Nanduca, a researcher from the Autonomous University of Southern Baja California.

It is one of 13 colonies of this kind of sea lion identified in the gulf, which is also known as the Sea of Cortez.

“The only colony that not only has remained stable but has increased slightly is that of Los Islotes,” Rosales told AFP.

Otherwise, the population of Zalophus californianus — their scientific name — in the Gulf of California has dropped by 65 percent from 1991 to 2019. It went from 45,000 to 15,000 animals because of an increase in the temperature of the water, said the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education, which is located in Baja California.

The trick at Los Islotes is to restrict human activities such as fishing and tourism. There, the sea lions have a sanctuary where they can rest and reproduce, said Rosales.

Indeed, tour operators suspend visits during the mating season so as not to disturb the animals.

Outside that season, human visitors can set out on a tour boat and even swim with these grayish-brown sea lions that sport long moustaches and swim equally well on their backs and tummies.

“It is a little scary, but I got used to it and it was really cool,” said Esmeralda Fonseca, a US tourist who swam with the sea lions along with a group of girlfriends in their 20s.

Adult California sea lions tend to be territorial and keep their distance from people, but young ones like to get close to humans.

“They are interesting, playful and fun,” said Jacqueline Ojeda, a tour guide.

Tourists can also see rock formations, sea birds and — with a bit of luck — dolphins, orcas and whales, depending on the season.

Ojeda said the population of California sea lions has grown, “and I think this is good, but it can improve. We need to be more responsible in taking care of them.”

Los Islotes is part of a Gulf of California protected area that has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2005.  

Forget hot chocolate: a cold drink made from parts of the cacao fruit usually thrown away aims to lure health- and environmentally-conscious consumers.

The “Elix” drink unveiled Thursday by Swiss firm Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest chocolate maker, is part of a growing trend to use 100 percent of fruits in processed foods to reduce waste and pressure on the enviroment.

Typically, 70 percent of the cacao fruit including the peel, pulp and juice are discarded, with just the beans used to make chocolate.

“It has a very nice zesty, fruity flavour,” Barry Callebaut’s chief executive Peter Boone told AFP ahead of a launch event in Amsterdam. “But then it has an active health claim.”

The drink launches first in Europe where the EU’s food safety agency has backed claims that a substance in cacao called flavanols is beneficial to blood circulation.

Approval by the US Food and Drug Administration is “pending in spring 2022”, the company said.

Elix is the latest bid by the firm — which supplies food giants like Nestle, Unilever, and Mondelez — to develop new products as chocolate consumption in developed markets declines.

In 2017, Barry Callebaut unveiled a new pink type of chocolate, called ruby. In 2019, the company also launched a new type of chocolate using the whole fruit.

Efforts to use all the cocoa fruit follow criticism over the chocolate industry’s role in deforestation in top producers Ivory Coast and Ghana. 

Environment group Mighty Earth in 2017 named Barry Callebaut among makers that had indirectly driven the loss of up to 90 percent of national parks in those countries.

The new drink was part of an effort to address those concerns, Boone said.

“We started to upcycle the waste and generate more value in the end for the farmers, but also doing something good for the environment.”

An expert committee on Thursday recommended a booster dose of Moderna’s anti-Covid vaccine in the United States for certain at-risk groups, a month after making a similar decision for the Pfizer shot.

The opinion submitted by the advisory committee of the Food and Drug Administration — composed of researchers, epidemiologists and infectious disease experts — is not binding, but it is rare for the FDA not to follow it. 

After a day of debate, the experts decided to authorize a booster dose of Moderna for three categories of people: the over-65s, people aged between 18 and 64 who are at a higher risk of developing a severe version of the coronavirus, and those whose work may involve frequent exposure to the virus. 

The same definitions were adopted for the Pfizer booster. 

The last category includes supermarket workers, health workers, prisoners and people in homeless shelters. 

The booster can be administered six months after the second injection of Moderna’s vaccine. The dosage is 50 micrograms, which is half the dosage of the initial shots. 

A Moderna representative told the panel the booster would help combat the Delta variant, at a time when vaccine effectiveness has been observed to decline over time against infection and mild cases of the disease, even though it remains effective against severe cases. 

The committee will meet again on Friday to deliver its verdict on a booster dose for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. 

It will also discuss the results of a study published this week that looked at the possibility of using a different vaccine for the booster shot than that used for the initial dose, which at the moment is not authorized in the United States.

The study suggests that people who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine may benefit from a booster dose of a different, messenger-RNA vaccine such as Pfizer or Moderna. 

Almost 15 million Americans have received a dose of the J&J vaccine, and nearly 70 million are fully vaccinated with Moderna. 

If the FDA officially allows booster shots for these two vaccines, an expert committee from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) will in turn have to deliver its own opinion next week, at a meeting scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

As a final step, the CDC will have to publish precise recommendations for these injections, intended for healthcare professionals administering them.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said Thursday he had no fear ahead of his “dream-come-true” launch to the International Space Station (ISS), a Russian project aimed at boosting its space tourism credentials.

The mission is one of several this year by non-professional astronauts, including 90-year-old “Star Trek” actor William Shatner who on Wednesday completed a space flight on board a Blue Origin rocket.

Maezawa, 45, is the founder of Japan’s largest online fashion mall and the country’s 30th richest man, according to Forbes.

“I’ve got a list of one hundred things I want to do on the station like play badminton,” Maezawa said at a news conference on Thursday.

“The closer it gets the more excited I get. I’m not afraid or worried,” he said.

Maezawa and his assistant are set to blast off from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in December, accompanied by Russia cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin.

They are scheduled to spend 12 days on board the ISS and Maezawa has said he plans to document his journey for his YouTube channel with over 700,000 subscribers.

“I want to tell you that dreams do come true,” he said in Moscow on Thursday. “Go for goal. Everything depends on you.”

He will be the first space tourist to travel to the ISS with Russia’s space agency Roscosmos since 2009 when Canadian Guy Laliberte, co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, travelled to the station.

Earlier this month, Roscosmos sent an actress and a director to the ISS where they are filming scenes for the first movie in orbit. They will return to Earth on Sunday. 

Maezawa’s three-person crew will travel aboard the Soviet-designed Soyuz rocket that for decades has ferried astronauts from around the world to the ISS.

Last year, however, Russia lost its monopoly for ISS flights to Elon Musks’s SpaceX that successfully delivered NASA astronauts to the station in a Crew Dragon capsule. 

SpaceX made history this year by sending the first all-civilian crew around the Earth’s orbit in a mission called Inspiration4.

The US company also plans in 2023 to take an all-civilian mission on a flight around the moon, funded by Maezawa who plans to be among the eight people on board.

Competition in the space tourism sector is heating up as more players emerge. 

Blue Origin, the company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, completed two missions beyond the Earth’s atmosphere this year.

Virgin Galatic of billionaire Richards Branson offers a similar experience of a few minutes in weightlessness before coming back to Earth.

Both Bezos and Branson were aboard for their company’s respective maiden voyage.

Coldplay outlined plans Thursday for an eco-friendly world tour in which fans will power the shows using “kinetic flooring” and cycles. 

But frontman Chris Martin admitted to the BBC that they risked criticism from fans, given that they still enjoyed the use of private jets. 

“The people that give us backlash for that kind of thing, for flying, they’re right. So we don’t have any argument against that,” Martin said. 

But he said that the band still “want to tour and we want to meet people and connect with people — so try and do it in the cleanest way possible”.

The tour was announced a day ahead of the release of new album “Music of the Spheres” on Friday. 

It kicks off in March, taking in Central and North America, Europe, and ending in Rio de Janeiro in September, with more dates on the way.

The announcement came with a list of “sustainability initiatives” including a plan to cut their overall emissions in half compared with the last tour in 2016-17. 

The kinetic flooring will generate electricity as fans move. 

“You know when the frontman says, ‘We need you to jump up and down’? When I say that, I literally really need you to jump up and down. Because if you don’t, then the lights go out,” Martin told the BBC. 

They will also plant a tree for every ticket sold.

Some 5.4 million people bought tickets to their last tour. 

Martin said in 2019 that they were taking a break from globe-trotting concerts in order “to work out how our tour can not only be sustainable (but) how can it be actively beneficial”.

“We’ve spent the last two years consulting with environmental experts to make this tour as sustainable as possible, and, just as importantly, to harness the tour’s potential to push things forward,” the band said on their website Thursday. 

“We won’t get everything right, but we’re committed to doing everything we can and sharing what we learn.”

A French court on Thursday ordered the government to make up for its failure to meet its own greenhouse gas reduction targets, saying it needed to “repair” the emissions overshoots.

Four NGOs backed by a petition carrying 2.3 million signatures took the French state to court in 2019 in what they called “the case of the century”, asking the judges to rule on the government’s alleged climate target shortcomings between 2015 and 2018.

The Paris administrative court found that France emitted 15 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent beyond its targets over that period.

It ordered Prime Minister Jean Castex and his government to take measures “to repair the damage” caused by the failure to compensate for the excess emissions.

The court gave a deadline of December 31, 2022, to set things right, leaving the methods to achieve this up to the government.

The court had already accepted the plaintiffs’ reasoning in February, ruling that France had failed to respect its own “carbon budget” based on the COP 21 UN climate accord signed in Paris in December 2015.

However, on Thursday it rejected a provision demanded by the plaintiffs that failure to meet the deadline should result in 78 million euros ($91 million) in penalties every six months until the target was fully achieved.

“We won,” tweeted both Cecile Duflot — a former government minister and now head of Oxfam France — and Greenpeace France boss Jean-Francois Julliard.

“The government is now forced to keep France’s climate promises,” said Notre Affaire a Tous, a third plaintiff that fights against environmental protection violations through court action.

The fourth plaintiff, Fondation Nicolas Hulot, created by President Emmanuel Macron’s former environment minister, said: “France has been sentenced to repair the consequences of its climate inaction.”

The ruling is the latest in a series of court decisions putting pressure on France to meet its own environmental targets.

In July, France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, ordered the government to take measures by March 31, 2022, to honour its commitments in terms of greenhouse gas reductions.

France has committed to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 40 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

The 2015 Paris agreement, a binding treaty, called for a limit on global warming of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, and “preferably” 1.5C degrees.

Based on progress so far, experts say the world is currently unlikely to meet either target, instead heading for close to 3C degrees.

Britain’s Prince William ignited controversy on Thursday by blasting space tourism and saying that more attention should be paid to problems closer to home ahead of the COP26 climate summit.

The comments by Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson were scheduled to be aired in a BBC interview later Thursday, a day after 90-year-old “Star Trek” star William Shatner became a real space traveller on Blue Origin’s second crewed mission.

The company’s maiden human flight in July had included its founder Jeff Bezos of Amazon and was seen as a breakthrough for the emerging space tourism sector.

But Prince William said: “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.” 

Virgin Galactic, which offers a similar experience of a few minutes of weightlessness and a view of the Earth’s curvature from the cosmos, launched its founder Richard Branson in July, a few days before Bezos.

The comments by William, second in line to the UK throne, were rebuffed by critics who pointed to the scientific value of mankind’s decades-old forays into the final frontier.

British space scientist and broadcaster Maggie Aderin-Pocock said she agreed with William that humanity had made a “mess” of Earth, and had to learn the lessons. 

“But it can’t be our only focus. Space is inspirational. Because of ‘Star Trek’, I became a space scientist, now I work on climate change,” she said on ITV.

“I’m going to COP26 next month to talk about how space is helping us with climate change. So yes, we need to focus on climate change, but it can’t be the only thing.”

The group Republic, which campaigns to abolish Britain’s monarchy, said William should “keep his ill-informed opinions to himself”. 

“This is politics, and while space tourism is questionable, science benefits from space exploration,” it tweeted.

“We may agree or disagree, but lectures from a hypocrite who can’t be properly challenged are a real problem.”

– ‘Ahead of the curve’ –

William was speaking ahead of the inaugural Earthshot Prize awards ceremony on Sunday, his initiative to honour those working on environmental solutions. 

Looking ahead to the COP26 summit in Glasgow, which begins on October 31, he warned world leaders against “clever speak, clever words, but not enough action”.

“It would be an absolute disaster if (son) George is sat here talking to you… in like 30 years’ time, still saying the same thing, because by then we will be too late.”

William’s father Prince Charles, a lifelong environmentalist, has also spoken out on the need for action from the leaders rather than words in the build-up to the UN climate summit.

“He’s had a really rough ride on that, and I think you know he’s been proven to being well ahead of the curve, well beyond his time in warning about some of these dangers,” William said.

“But it shouldn’t be that there’s a third generation now coming along having to ramp it up even more.”

Queen Elizabeth, Charles and William are all due to attend events at the two-week summit.

The gathering will try to persuade major developing economies to do more to cut their carbon emissions, and get the rich world to cough up billions more to help poorer countries adapt to climate change.

“I want the things that I’ve enjoyed -– the outdoor life, nature, the environment -– I want that to be there for my children, and not just my children but everyone else’s children,” William said.

“If we’re not careful we’re robbing from our children’s future through what we do now. And I think that’s not fair.”