AFP UK

A mother who said her young son developed a rare form of cancer because of his exposure to Roundup lost her court battle in California, lawyers said Tuesday.

Ezra Clark was only four years old when he was diagnosed in February 2016 with Burkitt’s lymphoma, a particularly aggressive kind of cancer that affects the lymph nodes.

According to the complaint filed in a Los Angeles court by his mother, Destiny Clark, the youngster was directly exposed when she sprayed her property with the Monsanto-made herbicide.

But a jury in Los Angeles found there was no evidence linking the weedkiller with the boy’s illness.

The ruling was welcomed by Bayer, Monsanto’s parent company.

“The jury’s verdict… is in line with both the assessment of the relevant regulatory authorities worldwide and the extensive scientific evidence from four decades,” a company statement said.

“We have great sympathy for Ezra Clark and his family, but the jury has carefully weighed the scientific evidence on this case and concluded that glyphosate is not the cause of his illness.”

Lawyers for Destiny Clark said they were examining their options for an appeal.

“This was a very unusual case. The jury was asked only whether the boy’s exposure to Roundup caused his cancer. There was no evidence of Monsanto’s conduct allowed,” said a statement.

Bayer has been plagued by problems since it bought Monsanto, which owns Roundup, in 2018 for $63 billion, and inherited its legal woes.

The German firm has set aside more than $15 billion to deal with a wave of US lawsuits linked to the weed killer.

Bayer maintains that scientific studies and regulatory approvals show Roundup’s main ingredient glyphosate is safe.

Glyphosate is nonetheless classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer at the World Health Organization (WHO).

Rescue teams saved two stranded whales along the Atlantic coast of Argentina Tuesday, the World Marine Foundation said. 

The animals were stranded on the beach of the seaside resort town of La Lucila del Mar, 220 miles (360 kilometers) south of Buenos Aires, just as spring arrives to the southern hemisphere.

“The first, which was stranded on Sunday, was a juvenile female humpback whale, 32 feet (9.8 meters) long and approximately eight tons in weight,” the conservation group said in a statement. 

The second individual, which “is a male of the same species, 28 feet long, and approximately seven tons, appeared Monday night,” the foundation added. 

Some 30 people participated in the rescue operation, including local residents, marine conservationists, Civil Defense members, coast guard officers, firefighters, volunteers and beach lifeguards. 

Their collective efforts allowed the animals to return to the sea, the statement said. 

“Upon arriving to survey the first animal’s situation, primary support efforts were immediately carried out, including assuring the individual’s position allowed it to breathe, keeping its pectoral fins underwater in order to stabilize its body temperature as much as possible,” the organization said. 

The whole procedure was “difficult,” the group said. At one point, the force of the waves knocked the whale over so that the mammal’s blowhole was underwater and it was unable to breathe. 

“Thanks to a quick action, they were able to turn it over,” said Sergio Rodriguez Heredia, a biologist at the World Marine Foundation’s Rescue Center. 

Rescuers tucked cables underneath the whale’s body — connected to a huge backhoe tractor crane — hoping to free it from the sandy sea floor. 

The workers noticed the second whale overnight, seeing it was in a “good state of health,” said Augusto Giachetti, director of the Civil Defense’s coastal division. 

They waited until dawn to begin the second whale’s rescue. 

“It was necessary to realign the animal, using the assistance of a backhoe and special cables to move it a big enough distance that it was able to float,” he Giachetti said. 

Once the whale realized it was able to float, it swam out to sea. 

The US Coast Guard is investigating a possible anchor strike as the cause of a broken pipeline that has spewed tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the sea off California, media reported Tuesday.

Emergency responders say up to 131,000 gallons of thick, sticky fuel have fouled waters that are home to seals, dolphins and whales since a pipeline ruptured at the weekend.

A 15-mile (24-kilometer) stretch of coastline has been closed to the public, and fishing has been halted as crews scramble to clean up one of California’s biggest spills in decades.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the Coast Guard was trying to determine if a large commercial ship set anchor in the wrong place — and damaged the pipeline.

Martyn Willsher, the chief executive of pipeline operator Amplify Energy, said underwater observations revealed that 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) of the pipeline was not where it should be.

“The pipeline has essentially been pulled like a bowstring,” he told a press conference.

“At its widest point it is 105 feet away from where it was,” he said, adding the break in the pipeline was at the apex of this bend.

Willsher refused to speculate on the cause of that displacement and whether a ship’s anchor could be responsible, but said: “It is a 16-inch steel pipeline that’s a half inch thick and covered in an inch of concrete.

“For it to be moved 105 feet is not common.”

Los Angeles and Long Beach are among the busiest container ports in the world.

Pandemic-sparked logjams have seen dozens of huge container vessels stationed offshore as they wait for a berth.

Ships are given designated anchor points, usually well away from underwater hazards such as pipelines.

But the Los Angeles Times cited a source with knowledge of the investigation into the oil spill, who said a wrongly placed anchor may have dragged the pipeline along the seabed.

Officials under a “Unified Command” umbrella group said there are 14 vessels trying to recover oil from the water, with a little more than 4,700 gallons collected by Tuesday.

“Our top priorities remain the safety of health and human life, protection of the environment protection of wildlife, and to find and remove that oil as we detect it,” said Coast Guard captain Rebecca Ore.

Ore added that the precise quantity of oil that had leeched into the water was not known, but that the recovery effort was using a “worst-case scenario” equivalent to 131,000 gallons. This is slightly higher than the previously widely reported figure.

– Wildlife affected –

At least eight birds have been found covered in oil, with reports of other wildlife also affected.

Officials have warned people not to touch or try to save any creatures they find, but instead to call local authorities and alert them to animals affected by the oil.

The spill originated near the Elly platform, which was built in 1980 and is one of 23 oil and gas drilling platforms in federal waters off California, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Environmentalists have repeatedly called attention to the age of some of the facilities — which they say are rusty and poorly maintained — and the risks they pose. 

The disaster has reignited a debate about the presence of oil rigs and pipelines near the coast of Southern California.

Japanese-American scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and Giorgio Parisi of Italy on Tuesday won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems.

The Nobel committee said it was sending a message with its prize announcement just weeks before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, as the rate of global warming sets off alarm bells around the world.

“The world leaders that haven’t got the message yet, I’m not sure they will get it because we are saying it,” said Thor Hans Hansson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

“But… what we are saying is that the modelling of climate is solidly based in physics theory.” 

Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, will share half of the 10 million kronor ($1.1 million, one million euro) prize for their research on climate models.

Parisi, 73, won the other half for his work on the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems.

“Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it,” the Nobel Committee said.

“Giorgio Parisi is rewarded for his revolutionary contributions to the theory of disordered materials and random processes,” it added.

Manabe, who left Japan for the US in the 1950s, is affiliated with Princeton University, while Hasselmann is a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.

Parisi, who also won the prestigious Wolf Prize in February, is a professor at Rome’s Sapienza University.

– Facing climate change –

Working in the 1960s, Manabe showed how levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere correspond to increased Earth surface temperatures. Crucially, he recognized the role of water vapour in trapping heat, which is much more than carbon dioxide alone.

Manabe’s seminal models, carried out at a time when computer power was a fraction of what they are today, remain a blueprint for the field.

But at the time he had little idea of his work’s critical importance, telling reporters at a press event at Princeton, New Jersey, that he carried out his research “because I really had great fun”.

Hasselmann was credited for working out how climate models can remain reliable despite sometimes chaotic variation in weather trends. 

The Committee praised his identification of climate “fingerprints” caused by both natural and human activities and how much climate change can be attributed solely to man-made emissions.

“In 30 to 100 years, depending on how much fossil fuel we consume, we will face a very significant climate change,”  Hasselmann said in a 1988 interview, according to a statement from the Max Planck Society in Germany.

Hasselmann received an ovation from his work colleagues when the news broke.

“It was a bit strange for me, and it took a little longer for the audience to understand (my research),” he said 

“Personally, I am very grateful that young people have taken up the problem,” he added.

– ‘A huge threat to humanity’ –

While scientists have been warning about dire climate outcomes for decades, there has not been nearly enough policy progress on transitioning from fossil fuels.

Asked for his views on the intersection of science and politics, Manabe said: “To try to understand climate change is not too easy, but it’s much, much easier than what is happening in current politics.” 

Parisi was honoured for his work in the 1980s that was said by the Committee to be “among the most important contributions” to the theory of complex systems. 

His work helped physicists understand apparently entirely random materials, with wide-ranging applications including mathematics, biology and machine learning.

Linking Manabe and Hasselman’s work to Parisi’s, the Nobel Foundation said this year’s prize “recognises new methods for describing complex systems and predicting their long-term behaviour.

“One complex system of vital importance to humankind is Earth’s climate.”

“I think the award is important not only for me but also for the other two because climate change is a huge threat to humanity and it is extremely important that governments act resolutely as quickly as possible,” Parisi told a press conference at the Lincean Academy in Rome.

– ‘Drought and wildfire’ –

Tuesday’s award was the first Nobel in physics to honour climate work, but the subject has previously received Nobel recognition in other disciplines.

The UN’s IPCC, which received the Peace Prize together with former US vice president Al Gore in 2007, welcomed the award and congratulated the laureates in a statement.

“It is encouraging to see the Nobel Physics Prize recognising the work of scientists who have contributed so much to our understanding of climate change,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.

He noted that both Manabe and Hasselmann had contributed to the IPCC’s assessment reports in the 1990s.

When Manabe learned he won the physics Nobel, he cast his mind to the luminaries who came before him and thought “My God, this is a big surprise that I got this award,” he said.

But after considering the current climate crisis, and that his contribution was a step towards understanding it better, “Then I thought, maybe it’s okay.”

Extinction Rebellion climate activists burst onto the catwalk at Louis Vuitton’s Tuesday Paris Fashion Week show to blast the industry’s impact on the environment.

“Overconsumption = extinction”, a banner brandished by one demonstrator from the international civil disobedience movement against climate change read.

She climbed onto the catwalk set up in the Louvre art gallery even as models were showing off the latest styles, before being hustled away by security guards, an AFP photographer saw.

Extinction Rebellion, Friends of the Earth and Youth For Climate said in a statement that around 30 people were involved in planning the protest, with two arrested.

They called on the government to enforce “an immediate cut in production levels in the sector, given that 42 items of clothing were sold per person in France in 2019”.

Louis Vuitton did not immediately comment on the incident when contacted by AFP.

The Nobel Prize in Physics has gone to three scientists who sought to predict the long-term evolution of a complex system such as the climate by modelling variables — weather, human actions — that create disorder within those systems.

What is the link between the modelling of global warming, which earned Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann half the prize, and the work of the third winner, Giorgio Parisi, who focused on the underlying disorder of matter?

All three study complex systems: large-scale climate or the behaviour of certain materials at an infinitely small scale. From the erratic fluctuations within these systems, the three physicists succeeded in teasing out simpler behaviours and reliable predictions.

“We recognised that emerging phenomena sometimes require us to look at all the individual complicated physical mechanisms and knit them together to make a prediction,” said Nobel Physics Committee member John Wettlaufer, on hand when the awards were announced in Stockholm on Tuesday.

Climate “is THE complex system par excellence,” said Freddy Bouchet, a physicist at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research. 

A large number of variables, in other words, interact — atmosphere, oceans, soils, vegetation — rendering any reliable forecast beyond a few weeks elusive.

But alongside and within this observable chaos there are also clear trends that can be linked to well-identified causes, such as long-term global warming attributable to human activity.

– Hidden rules –

“In climate science, the random and the systematic overlap,” said Bouchet. “The mathematical tools developed by Klaus Hasselmann have made it possible to separate the two in order to better understand the evolution of climate.”

Being able to tease out patterns in what is random — the signal in the noise — is fundamental to understanding the evolution of extreme weather such as heat waves, storms and hurricanes.

The models developed by the Japanese-American Syukuro Manabe have succeeded in cracking the signature code of climate subsystems. 

“These are the first models which made it possible to calculate the effect of the increase in carbon dioxide of anthropogenic origin on global warming at the core of contemporary climate models”, Bouchet said.

Giorgio Parisi, for his part, made a major contribution to the theory of these complex systems by revealing the hidden rules that govern them.

“I started to lay the foundations of this science — which did not exist at the beginning of the 1980s — by studying nature through mathematics”, the Italian researcher told Corriere della Sera newspaper earlier this year.

It is a science that allows us, for example, to explain the changing form of a cloud of starlings in flight.

Parisi provided the mathematical tools to understand how random processes can play a decisive role in the development of large structures, such as those governing climate. 

Today, they are applied in biology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence.

The US Coast Guard is investigating a possible anchor strike as the cause of a broken pipeline that has spewed tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the sea off California, media reported Tuesday.

Around 126,000 gallons of thick, sticky fuel have fouled waters that are home to seals, dolphins and whales since a pipeline ruptured at the weekend.

A 15-mile (24-kilometer) stretch of coastline has been closed to the public, and fishing has been halted as crews scramble to clean up one of California’s biggest spills in decades.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the Coast Guard was investigating if a large commercial ship set anchor in the wrong place — and damaged the pipeline.

Los Angeles and Long Beach are among the busiest container ports in the world. Pandemic-sparked logjams have seen dozens of huge container vessels stationed offshore as they wait for a berth.

Ships are given designated anchor points, usually well away from underwater hazards such as pipelines.

But the LA Times cited a source with knowledge of the investigation into the oil spill, who said a wrongly placed anchor may have dragged the pipeline along the seabed.

Officials under a “Unified Command” umbrella group said there are 14 vessels trying to recover oil from the water, with a little more than 4,000 gallons collected by Monday.

“The Unified Command is focused on the health and safety of the public, responders, and the protection of our coastal community,” said Coast Guard captain Rebecca Ore.

“We have many dedicated professionals working around the clock to clean up this spill and ensure the safety of the public and environment.”

– Wildlife affected –

Amplify Energy, the company that operates the pipeline, said Monday that “as a precautionary measure, all of the company’s production and pipeline operations at the Beta Field have been shut down.”

CEO Martyn Willsher pledged the firm will do “whatever needs to be done” to take care of the spill, and said the company had significant insurance to cope with associated costs.

At least four birds have been found covered in oil, with reports of other wildlife also affected.

Officials have warned people not to touch or try to save any creatures they find, but instead to call local authorities and alert them to animals affected by the oil.

The spill originated near the Elly platform, which was built in 1980 and is one of 23 oil and gas drilling platforms in federal waters off California, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Environmentalists have repeatedly called attention to the age of some of the facilities — which they say are rusty and poorly maintained — and the risks they pose. 

The disaster has reignited a debate about the presence of oil rigs and pipelines near the coast of Southern California.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pointman for the COP26 climate summit insisted Tuesday that his own Conservative party was on board with the ambition of saving the planet.

COP26 president Alok Sharma said that despite grumbling on the party’s right wing at its annual conference, MPs all saw the potential for a green economic revolution.

“Sometimes people don’t perceive the Conservatives as leading on this,” the former business minister said on the sidelines of the conference in Manchester, northwest England.

“Cabinet colleagues actually understand why it’s vitally important to get this right,” he said, ahead of the two-week COP26 summit in Scotland starting on October 31.

“This is a real, real opportunity to create jobs, to create growth, to have a healthier country, a healthier planet.” 

In his speech closing the Conservative gathering on Wednesday, Johnson is also expected to talk up Britain’s action on climate change and the need for global coordination.

Touring exhibitors’ stands at the conference on Tuesday, Johnson rode an e-bike, got in a electric tractor, and played with a puzzle to assemble a zero-carbon energy house.

But at the Manchester gathering as a whole, the topic of climate change has been relegated to the back burner this week, even as former prime minister Tony Blair called for “real partnership and real leadership” on the issue.

“The acceleration in the climate crisis means that time is short — but it is not too late,” the former Labour leader wrote in the London Evening Standard newspaper. 

Sharma was not given one of the headline speaking slots.

And the issue was absent from finance minister Rishi Sunak’s address on Monday, when he laid out a strategy to fix Britain’s finances and focus on tech-led growth after the Covid crisis. 

– ‘Irresponsible crusties’ –

The omission was a “damaging sign” ahead of COP26 in Glasgow, commented Rebecca Newsom, head of policy for Greenpeace UK.

“Coughing up more cash for green infrastructure now would save enormous costs later and create millions of new jobs across the UK,” she said.

“At a time when we need spending commitments for a zero carbon future, Rishi sounds like he’s preparing to take a big step backwards.”

Nor did Foreign Secretary Liz Truss use the C word — climate — in her own speech on Sunday, while vowing to support “greener” growth and “clean infrastructure” in developing countries.

In contrast, the B word — Brexit — has been a recurrent theme for delegates of Johnson’s party, adamant that current problems associated with the EU divorce will pass.

Brexit minister David Frost admonished the “anti-transport, anti-car” lobby’s “anti-growth ideologies” and “persistent miserabilism”.

Interior minister Priti Patel used her own speech on Tuesday to promise tougher police and court action against climate protestors who have been blockading UK roads and whom Johnson characterised as “irresponsible crusties”.

“I will not tolerate so-called eco-warriors trampling over our way of life and draining police resources,” she said to applause from the Tory faithful.

But the Conservative spectrum also includes the likes of the prime minister’s father, Stanley Johnson, a veteran campaigner for the environment.

Opposed to unfettered economic growth, he called at the party conference for the world to emulate Bhutan’s concept of “gross national happiness” rather than gross domestic product.

The Glasgow summit faces a packed agenda dominated by efforts to persuade countries such as China and India to commit to binding “nationally determined contributions” towards net zero emissions.

“The single biggest change I think we can have is basically consigning coal production to history right around the world,” Sharma said, welcoming China’s pledge to end financing for coal projects.

He said the summit would also tackle protection of biodiversity with endangered species at risk of mass extinction from man-made changes.

“Climate change and biodiversity loss are effectively two sides of the same coin. There will be a big focus on nature at COP.” 

A Russian actress and director arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday to begin a 12-day mission to make the first movie in orbit.

The Russian crew is set to beat a Hollywood project that was announced last year by “Mission Impossible” star Tom Cruise together with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Actress Yulia Peresild, 37, and film director Klim Shipenko, 38, took off from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan as scheduled. 

They docked at the ISS, behind schedule at 1222 GMT, after veteran cosmonaut and captain of their spacecraft, Anton Shkaplerov, switched to manual control.

As the hatches opened, the Russian trio floated into the orbital station where they were greeted by two Russian, a French, a Japanese and three NASA astronauts. 

“Welcome to the International Space Station,” Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky tweeted from the ISS.

The crew travelled in a Soyuz MS-19 spaceship to film scenes for “The Challenge”.

The movie’s plot, which has been mostly kept under wraps along with its budget, centres around a female surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.

Shkaplerov, 49, and the two Russian cosmonauts already aboard the ISS are said to have cameo roles in the film. 

Konstantin Ernst, the head of the Kremlin-friendly Channel One TV network and a co-producer of the film, said he spoke with the crew as soon as they docked. 

“They are in good spirits and feel well,” Ernst told AFP. 

– ‘It was difficult’ –

“It was difficult psychologically, physically and emotionally… but I think when we reach our goal all the challenges won’t seem so bad,” Peresild — who was selected out of 3,000 applicants for the role — said at a pre-flight press conference.

Shipenko and Peresild are expected to return to Earth on October 17 in a capsule with Novitsky, who has been on the ISS for the past six months.

Ernst told AFP that a film crew will document their landing, which will also feature in the movie. 

If successful, the mission will add to a long list of firsts for Russia’s space industry.

The Soviets launched the first satellite Sputnik, and sent the first animal, a dog named Laika, the first man, Yuri Gagarin, and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova, into orbit.

“Space is where we became pioneers, where despite everything we maintain a fairly confident position,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Tuesday.

But compared with the Soviet era, modern Russia has struggled to innovate and its space industry is fighting to secure state funding with the Kremlin prioritising military spending. 

Its space agency is still reliant on Soviet-designed technology and has faced a number of setbacks, including corruption scandals and botched launches.

Russia is also falling behind in the global space race, facing tough competition from the United States and China, with Beijing showing growing ambitions in the industry.

– Russians ‘lost interest’ –

Roscosmos was also dealt a blow after SpaceX last year successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS, costing Russia its monopoly for journeys to the orbital station. 

For political analyst Konstantin Kalachev, the space film is PR and a way to “distract” Russians from the “problems” that Roscosmos is facing.

“This is supposed to inspire Russians, show how cool we are, but I think Russians have completely lost interest in the space industry,” Kalachev told AFP.

In a bid to spruce up its image and diversify its revenue, Russia’s space programme revealed this year that it will be reviving its tourism programme to ferry fee-paying adventurers to the ISS. 

After a decade-long pause, Russia will send two Japanese tourists — including billionaire Yusaku Maezawa — to the ISS in December, capping a year that has been a milestone for amateur space travel.

Last month, SpaceX completed the first all-civilian mission to space that took four untrained astronauts on a three-day loop around the Earth’s orbit. 

The trip followed billionaire Richard Branson’s several minutes in weightlessness in July, with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos completing a similar mission days later.

Later this month, 90-year-old actor William Shatner, known for his portrayal of Captain Kirk in the Star Trek series, will fly to space on a mission with Bezos’s Blue Origin.

US-Japanese scientist Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann of Germany and Giorgio Parisi of Italy on Tuesday won the Nobel Physics Prize for climate models and the understanding of physical systems, the jury said.

The Nobel committee said it was sending a message with its prize announcement just weeks before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, as the rate of global warming sets off alarm bells around the world.

“The world leaders that haven’t got the message yet, I’m not sure they will get it because we are saying it. But… what we are saying is that the modelling of climate is solidly based in physics theory,” said Thor Hans Hansson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Manabe, 90, and Hasselmann, 89, will share half of the 10 million kronor ($1.1 million, one million euro) prize for their research on climate models, while Parisi, 73, won the other half for his work on the interplay of disorder and fluctuations in physical systems.

“Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann laid the foundation of our knowledge of the Earth’s climate and how humanity influences it,” the Nobel Committee said.

“Giorgio Parisi is rewarded for his revolutionary contributions to the theory of disordered materials and random processes,” it added.

“The discoveries being recognised this year demonstrate that our knowledge about the climate rests on a solid scientific foundation, based on a rigorous analysis of observations,” Hansson said.

Manabe is affiliated with Princeton University in the US, while Hasselmann is a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg.

Parisi, who also won the prestigious Wolf Prize in February, is a professor at Rome’s Sapienza University.

– Facing climate change –

Working in the 1960s, Manabe showed how levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere correspond to increased Earth surface temperatures. 

He was influential in developing the physical models of Earth’s climate and explored how the heat received by Earth from the Sun radiates back into the atmosphere.

Hasselmann was credited for working out how climate models can remain reliable despite sometimes chaotic variation in weather trends. 

The Committee praised his identification of climate “fingerprints” caused by both natural and human activities and how much climate change can be attributed solely to manmade emissions.

Already three decades ago, Hasselmann issued an eerily accurate warning about where the climate was headed. 

“In 30 to 100 years, depending on how much fossil fuel we consume, we will face a very significant climate change,” Hasselmann said in a 1988 interview, according to a statement from the Max Planck Society in Germany.

Speaking to the Nobel Foundation after the award was announced, Hasselmann stressed the need for urgent action.

“There are many things we can do to prevent climate change,” he said, adding that he thought the issue depended on “whether people will realise that something which will happen in 20 or 30 years is something you have to respond to now.”

Parisi was honoured for his work in the 1980s that was said by the Committee to be “among the most important contributions” to the theory of complex systems. 

His work helped physicists understand apparently entirely random materials, with wide-ranging applications including mathematics, biology and machine learning.

Linking Manabe and Hasselman’s work to Parisi’s, the Nobel Foundation said this year’s prize “recognises new methods for describing complex systems and predicting their long-term behaviour.”

“One complex system of vital importance to humankind is Earth’s climate.”

“I think the award is important not only for me but also for the other two because climate change is a huge threat to humanity and it is extremely important that governments act resolutely as quickly as possible,” Parisi told a press conference at the Lincean Academy in Rome.

– ‘Drought and wildfire’ –

In Geneva, the head of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, said the prize demonstrates that “climate science is highly valued, and it should be highly valued.”

Tuesday’s award was the first Nobel in physics to honour climate work but the subject has previously received the Nobel nod in other disciplines.

The UN’s IPCC, which received the Peace Prize together with former US vice president Al Gore in 2007, welcomed the award and congratulated the laureates in a statement.

“It is encouraging to see the Nobel Physics Prize recognising the work of scientists who have contributed so much to our understanding of climate change,” said Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change.

He noted that both Manabe and Hasselmann had contributed to the IPCC’s assessment reports in the 1990s.

Manabe told Japanese broadcaster NHK he was “honoured” and “surprised” to receive the prize, adding: “The world suffers from drought and wildfire. Maybe (the award) has something to do with these.”