AFP UK

Activists from environmental group Greenpeace protested against a shipment of reprocessed nuclear fuel that was set to leave France for Japan on Wednesday for use in a power plant.

The load of highly radioactive Mox, a mixture of reprocessed plutonium and uranium, was escorted by police from a plant near the port of Cherbourg to the dockyard in the early hours of the morning.

A handful of Greenpeace activists waved flags and signs with anti-nuclear logos as they camped out on Tuesday night to wait for the heavy-goods truck transporting the high-security cargo.

The Mox from French nuclear technology group Orano is destined for a nuclear plant in Takahama in Japan and is the seventh such shipment from France since 1999.

Japan lacks facilities to process waste from its own nuclear reactors and sends most of it overseas, particularly to France.

The country is building a long-delayed reprocessing plant in Aomori in northern Japan.

“Orano and its partners have a longstanding experience in the transport of nuclear materials between Europe and Japan, in line with international regulations with the best safety and security records,” Orano said in a September 3 statement.

The fuel is being shipped by two specially designed ships from British company PNTL.

The world’s most influential conservation congress, meeting in Marseille, will vote starting Wednesday on motions to protect and restore nature, including several that are mired in controversy.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) does not set global policy, but its recommendations have in the past served as the backbone for UN treaties and conventions, and will help set the agenda for upcoming UN summits on food systems, biodiversity and climate change. 

– Safeguarding the Amazon –

An umbrella organisation representing more than two million indigenous peoples across nine South American nations has called for 80 percent of the Amazon basin to be declared a protected area by 2025. 

Over the last two decades, the Amazon has lost roughly 10,000 square kilometres every year to deforestation, much of it through fires set deliberately to clear land for commercial agriculture or cattle grazing.

This destruction combined with climate change, scientists have warned, could push the world’s largest tropical forest irretrievably past a “tipping point” into a savannah-like landscape.

“That’s the emergency, not just for us but for humanity,” Jose Gregorio Diaz Mirabal, a leader of the Curripaco people in Venezuela, told AFP.

– ‘Protected areas’ –

One of the most hotly debated motions calls for designating at least 30 percent of the planet’s land and water surface as protected areas. Many scientists and conservationists advocate for a more ambitious “half-Earth” target, and point out that any such areas will be meaningless if not backed up by rigorous monitoring and enforcement. 

A similar proposal is at the heart of a draft UN treaty — slated for completion next year at a biodiversity summit in Kunming, China — to halt and reverse the destruction of nature, especially the accelerating loss of wild plants and animals.

The pace at which species are going extinct is 100 to 1,000 times the normal “background” rate, a widely accepted threshold for the kind of mass-extinction event that has only occurred five times in the last half-billion years.  

– Deep-sea mining –

The IUCN’s 1,400 members — government agencies, NGOs and indigenous people’s organisations — must also decide whether to recommend a moratorium on deep sea mining and reform of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), a intergovernmental regulatory body.

Industry says unattached rocks on the ocean floor some five kilometres below the waves are a greener source of minerals — manganese, cobalt, nickel — needed to build electric vehicle batteries. Scientists counter that seabed ecosystems at that depth are fragile, and could take decades or longer to heal once disrupted. 

NGOs tracking the discussion in contact groups Wednesday said several countries — including Germany, which sits on the ISA Council — were indicating support for the ban.

– Climate change commission? –

The major drivers of species decline and extinction are habitat loss, hunting for food, poaching for animal parts, invasive species and environmental pollution.

But climate change is starting to loom large as a threat to wildlife, and a motion on the table would see the creation of a climate change commission within the IUCN. 

“We would bring together the world’s experts on climate change to help shape the agenda around species,” said Craig Hilton-Taylor, head of the IUCN’s Red List Unit.

Some governments might object that such a commission would duplicate the work of other UN bodies dedicated to climate issues, he said.

Plastic packaging and discarded fishing nets bob in the tranquil waters of the Mediterranean, signs of the choking pollution that has stirred strong feelings at the world conservation congress in the French port city Marseille this week.  

“The Mediterranean is the most beautiful sea in the world… and one of the most polluted,” said Danielle Milon, vice-president of the Calanques National Park on the edge of the city, where the International Union for Conservation of Nature is holding its congress. 

While the quantity of rubbish in the sea is well documented — the IUCN released a report on the issue last year entitled “Mare plasticum” — it is driving growing alarm among countries whose economies rely on tourism drawn to pristine beaches and sparkling waters.   

At the opening of the IUCN Congress, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to greatly increase the size of conservation areas off their Mediterranean coasts — as well as the rigour with which they are preserved. 

“Marine protected areas must no longer be paper parks but must have defined conservation measures,” Mitsotakis said at the opening ceremony. 

“We must promote sustainable tourism (and) put biodiversity at the heart of tourist coastal planning.”

– ‘Noah’s Ark’ –

Near the coasts the main types of plastic pollution in the almost closed sea are packaging and fishing debris, said Francois Galgani, a specialist on maritime waste at Ifremer, a top marine research centre in France.

“Turtles confuse the packaging with jellyfish and in some areas in the Mediterranean 80 percent of turtles have ingested plastic,” he said. 

Meanwhile, nets can kill long after the fishing boats leaves them behind. 

Plastic waste can alter life cycles and the floating debris can even transport some species far from their habitats. 

“A Noah’s ark”, said  Galgani, adding there are “no other examples of species transport of this magnitude”. 

To change the situation, everyone needs to play their part, Philippos Drousiotis head of the Cyprus sustainable tourism initiative. 

“I was in the tourism trade and very much liked the idea of being sustainable (but) environmentalists didn’t care about people,” he said, adding that he was driven by economic realism. 

With initiatives like the “keep our sand and sea plastic free” project, his organisation tries to steer tour organisers, boat rental firms and hotels to stop using single use plastics. 

It has also installed water fountains on beaches to make it easier for holidaymakers to give up their plastic bottles.

“The solutions are on land and not at sea,” said Romy Hentinger of the Tara Ocean Foundation.

It is also necessary to increase knowledge of the sources of pollution and how it circulates. 

The Tara Oceans schooner led an expedition in 2019 to trace plastic pollution in the major European rivers. 

According to Nathalie Van Den Broeck, oceanographer and vice-president of Surfrider Europe, some “80 percent of waste on beaches and in the seas comes from rivers”. 

The French NGO has also launched a study using artificial intelligence to find waste in images taken on mobile phones by citizen scientists. 

Volunteers have recently travelled along the banks of the Rhine, in the six countries crossed by the river. 

There are a host of initiatives looking to use the Marseille congress to develop networks and partnerships. 

Although Middle Eastern and North African countries from the southern shores of the Mediterranean — which often have far fewer resources — are conspicuous by their absence. 

But more needs to be done, said Mercedes Munoz Canas, from the IUCN Centre for Mediterranean Cooperation, who wants to bring in business interests. 

We must “build a community”, she said. 

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico on Tuesday near the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, leaving at least one person dead and shaking buildings in the capital several hundred kilometers away.

The epicenter was 11 kilometers (seven miles) southeast of Acapulco in Guerrero state, the National Seismological Service reported.

A man was killed when a utility pole fell on him in the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez, Guerrero state governor Hector Astudillo told Milenio TV.

But President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a video message that there were no reports of significant destruction.

“The epicenter was registered in Acapulco, Guerrero. Fortunately there is no damage in that state, no major damage,” he said.

Utility poles and other debris fell on a number of vehicles in Acapulco and the facade of a church collapsed, according to an AFP correspondent.

Tourists evacuated hotels as dozens of aftershocks, including at least eight of magnitude 4 or above, rattled nerves.

“I was taking a bath and suddenly I felt a very strong movement and then I was scared and screamed,” said a tourist from Mexico City who fled outside in only a bath towel.

“I came with my mom and we’re on the 11th floor of the hotel,” he said, hugging his 86-year-old mother, who was crying.

Acapulco Mayor Adela Roman said that the tremor sparked “nervous breakdowns” in the city.

“People are worried because there are aftershocks.”

She said that “a lot of gas leaks” had been detected in residential areas.

Authorities in Acapulco opened sports centers for people to sleep in if they were afraid to go home.

A church in the city of Chilpancingo offered refuge to families evacuated from housing that suffered structural damage, the Guerrero civil defense service said.

– ‘Very scared’ –

The earthquake was felt strongly in parts of Mexico City, sending residents and tourists spilling into the streets from homes and hotels.

“I’m very scared. I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight. I’m worried about my daughter. I woke her up to take her outside and I didn’t even put my shoes on,” said 49-year-old resident Laura Villa. 

There were no immediate reports of serious damage in the capital, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said on Twitter.

Several neighborhoods were left without power and the electricity board was working to restore it as soon as possible, she added.

Flashes of light were seen in the sky above the capital during the earthquake, which hit at a time when Mexico is facing a third wave of Covid-19 infections as well as severe flooding in some areas.

Bordered by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Mexico is one of the most seismically active places in the world, sitting atop five tectonic plates including three major ones.

On September 19, 1985 a 8.1 magnitude quake in Mexico City killed more than 10,000 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings.

On the anniversary of that earthquake in 2017, a 7.1 quake left around 370 people dead, mainly in the capital.

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Mexico on Tuesday near the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, leaving at least one person dead and shaking buildings in the capital several hundred kilometers away.

The epicenter was 11 kilometers (seven miles) southeast of Acapulco in Guerrero state, the National Seismological Service reported.

A man was killed when a utility pole fell on him in the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez, Guerrero state governor Hector Astudillo told Milenio TV.

But President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a video message that there were no reports of major damage.

Utility poles fell on a number of vehicles in Acapulco and the facade of a church collapsed, according to an AFP correspondent.

Tourists evacuated hotels as a series of aftershocks rattled nerves.

“I was taking a bath and suddenly I felt a very strong movement and then I was scared and screamed,” said a tourist from Mexico City who fled outside in only a bath towel.

“I came with my mom and we’re on the 11th floor of the hotel,” he said, hugging his 86-year-old mother, who was crying.

Acapulco Mayor Adela Roman said that the tremor sparked “nervous breakdowns” in the city.

“People are worried because there are aftershocks.”

She said that “a lot of gas leaks” had been detected in residential areas.

The earthquake was felt strongly in parts of Mexico City, sending residents and tourists spilling into the streets from homes and hotels.

“I’m very scared. I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight. I’m worried about my daughter. I woke her up to take her outside and I didn’t even put my shoes on,” said 49-year-old resident Laura Villa. 

There were no immediate reports of serious damage in the capital, Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said on Twitter.

Several neighborhoods were left without power and the electricity board was working to restore as soon as possible, she added.

Flashes of light were seen in the sky above the capital as the earthquake hit the power grid.

Bordered by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Mexico is one of the most seismically active places in the world, sitting atop five tectonic plates including three major ones.

On September 19, 1985 a 8.1 magnitude quake in Mexico City killed more than 10,000 people and destroyed hundreds of buildings.

On the anniversary of that earthquake in 2017, a 7.1 quake left around 370 people dead, mainly in the capital.

A massive icebreaker cuts its way through the frozen waters of the Arctic Ocean, clearing a path to the North Pole, all white as far as the eye can see. But even here, the impact of climate change can be felt.

Dmitry Lobusov has seen it. For 13 years he has captained the “50 Let Pobedy” (“50 Years of Victory”), part of a growing fleet of icebreakers that Russia is using to assert its power in Arctic waters.

The vast, nuclear-powered ships clear paths through the ice for commercial vessels, helping Russia to deliver its oil, gas and minerals to the rest of world, and eventually to set up an Arctic shipping route between Asia and Europe that Moscow has touted as a rival to the Suez Canal.

Lobusov, a 57-year-old with a grey beard who often has a pipe in hand, stares out from the bridge as the red-and-black ship ploughs forward, so silent you can hear the ice cracking under its hull. 

After nearly 30 years at sea, much of it in the Arctic, Lobusov has seen first hand the changes wrought by global warming.

“In the 1990s and early 2000s the ice was more difficult and thicker,” says the sailor, his blue uniform immaculate.

“There used to be a lot of perennial ice,” he says, referring to ice that forms on the surface of polar oceans and survives for multiple melting seasons.

“We hardly see that kind of ice anymore.”

Perennial ice is thicker and stronger because it forms over several years and loses salt, Lobusov explains, making it harder for the icebreaker to cut a path. But today, most of the ice cover is formed during the year and quickly melts in the summer.

– Melting ice cover –

Scientists say there is no doubt that this is climate change at work.

Russia’s Rosgidromet meteorological service said in a report in March that the Arctic ice cover is now five to seven times thinner than in the 1980s, and in the summer months the waters are becoming increasingly free of ice.

In September 2020, the ice cover in the Russian Arctic hit a low of 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles) — a record for that time of year — the report said. 

Russia, a third of which is within the Arctic circle, is warming faster than the global average, it said, with temperatures having risen by half a degree per decade since 1976. 

Long a sceptic of climate change, President Vladimir Putin has changed course in recent years, ordering his government to develop a plan to cut carbon emissions to below the level of the European Union by 2050. 

As wildfires raged in Siberia this summer, Putin said he was alarmed by a series of “absolutely unprecedented” natural disasters in Russia. 

Viktor Boyarsky, a 70-year-old seasoned Polar explorer who was travelling aboard the icebreaker, admits that global warming exists. But he says human activity “does not play a key role” and that its effects are not irreversible, despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary.

The former director of Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Museum, Boyarsky says the region is stuck in a vicious circle as retreating ice cover allows the warmer waters of the Atlantic to enter the Arctic basin. 

“It’s a chain reaction process. Less ice means more water and more heat,” he says, standing in the mist that envelopes the ice shelves of the North Pole.

– ‘We are just guests’ –

After his many years at sea, icebreaker captain Lobusov says the changes in the Arctic are undeniable.

Along with the thinner Arctic ice, he says the North Pole is now covered in fog in the summer. 

“I think it’s also the effect of warming, there is more humidity in the air,” he says. 

He has also seen glaciers shrinking in the Arctic, like on the Franz Josef Land archipelago of more than 190 islands.

“Many glaciers are receding towards the centre of the islands from where they are on the map,” he says. 

“There are no questions here, without a doubt this is the effect of the heat.”

Lobusov’s “50 Years of Victory” — part of a fleet of icebreakers operated by state atomic energy corporation Rosatom — has reached the North Pole 59 times and on this trip is carrying a group of teenagers who won a contest to travel aboard.

As the 160-metre (525-foot) ship passes off the coast of Prince George Land — an island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago — a polar bear wanders across the ice, watching the vessel. 

“The bears are the bosses here, this is their home,” Lobusov says. “We are just guests.”

The world must take urgent action on climate change at upcoming UN talks in Glasgow or low-lying Pacific nations will face a “dire” future, Samoa’s new leader has told AFP in an interview.

Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, who took office as Samoa’s first female prime minister in late July, gave a stark assessment of the Pacific’s prospects if efforts to tackle global warming continue to stall.

Mata’afa said rising seas were already swamping the region’s tiny atoll states — which include nations such as Tokelau, Tuvalu and Kiribati.

“With them, it’s a real and present circumstance — the water is gaining ground on them,” she said Monday, adding that violent cyclones were becoming more common across the South Pacific.

Major storms “used to be every 50 to 60 years, now it’s becoming every two to three years”, she said.

“For us, we’ve noticed the impact on our coastal areas, and about 70 percent of our country is settled on the coast.”

In a wide-ranging interview, Mata’afa also discussed the geopolitical rivalry between China and the United States in the Pacific, her disappointment at neighbouring Australia’s climate stance and the implications of her ground-breaking election victory.

But front of mind was the 26th edition of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties — COP26 — scheduled to start in the Scottish city of Glasgow in November.

The summit will involve negotiators from 196 countries in the biggest climate conference since landmark talks in Paris in 2015.

Mata’afa said it was crucial that participants honour the ambitious goal set in Paris to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial levels.

To do that, she said carbon-emitting countries needed to prioritise saving the planet over economic growth, adding: “It’s not rocket science.”

“The Pacific was sort of a lone voice in the debate for a very long time, but I think the science advisers have now brought the world’s thinking towards that.”

– ‘Mature’ China relations –

The 64-year-old admitted her frustration at regional heavyweight Australia, which refuses to adopt a net-zero emissions target while remaining one of the world’s largest fossil fuel exporters.

“When you’re working as a collective as we do in the Pacific, Australia is a part of that,” she said. 

“It is a frustrating element but that’s the reality of our lives, you can’t always agree.”

She also bristled at suggestions by some in Australia that Samoa did not understand the risks posed by forging close relations with China, which is seeking to expand its influence in the Pacific.

“What they were saying was we weren’t as well nuanced about how you have relationships with these big countries,” she said.

“We’ve been independent since 1962, so we’ve been around the block. I think we understand quite well what our relationships are, just as Australia has its own relationships.”

Mata’afa said the new government had no intention of changing its diplomatic recognition of Beijing and recognised the “One China” policy, although she remained open to trade with Taiwan.

She played down the impact of cancelling a Beijing-bankrolled port project agreed to by her predecessor, saying it was only at the feasibility stage when canned and would have no bearing on Samoa’s “mature” relationship with China.

Quizzed on rivalries between China and the United States in the region, Mata’afa said she was comfortable dealing with both superpowers to pursue Samoa’s best interests.

“In the geopolitical context, the reality of small countries is that we have to navigate our way through these larger countries and the issues they prioritise,” she said.

Mata’afa has been a long-time advocate for women’s rights and expressed hope her ground-breaking election win would signal a change of attitudes in the Pacific, which has one of the lowest rates of female parliamentary representation in the world.

“For gender role modelling, I’ve always believed that any women who achieved in whatever sector, once that happens other girls and women see that it can be done,” she said.

“It’s significant in that sense.”

The Covid-19 pandemic had a “devastating” impact on the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in 2020, according to a report released by the Global Fund on Wednesday.

“To mark our 20th anniversary, we had hoped to focus this year’s report on the extraordinary stories of courage and resilience that made possible the progress we have achieved against HIV, TB and malaria over the last two decades,” said Peter Sands, the Global Fund’s executive director. 

“But the 2020 numbers force a different focus. They confirm what we feared might happen when Covid-19 struck,” he said.

“The impact of Covid-19 on the fight against HIV, TB and malaria and the communities we support has been devastating. For the first time in the history of the global fund, key programmatic results have gone backwards.”

There were “significant” declines in HIV testing and prevention services, the fund said.

Compared with 2019, the number of people reached with HIV prevention and treatment dropped by 11 percent last year, while HIV testing dropped by 22 percent, holding back new treatment in most countries.

Nevertheless, the number of people who received life-saving antiretroviral therapy for HIV in 2020, rose by 8.8 percent to 21.9 million “despite Covid-19”. 

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the fight against TB worldwide had similarly been “catastrophic”, the report said.

The number of people treated for drug-resistant TB in the countries where the Global Fund invests dropped by “a staggering” 19 percent, with those on treatment for extensively drug-resistant TB registering an even bigger drop of 37 percent, it said. 

The fund calculated that around 4.7 million people were treated for TB in 2020, around one million fewer than in 2019. 

Interventions to combat malaria “appear to have been less badly affected by Covid-19 than the other two diseases,” the report found. 

“Thanks to adaptation measures and the diligence and innovation of community health workers, prevention activities remained stable or increased compared to 2019.”

The number of mosquito nets distributed increased by 17 percent to 188 million and structures covered by indoor residual spraying increased by three percent. 

Nevertheless, the Global Fund — which brings together governments, multi-lateral agencies, bilateral partners, civil society groups, people affected by the diseases and the private sector — said that its “rapid and determined response to Covid-19 prevented an even worse outcome”.

In 2020, the fund disbursed $4.2 billion to continue the fight against HIV, TB and malaria and approved an additional $980 million in funding to respond to Covid-19.

The Global Fund said that since it was set up in 2002, it has saved 44 million lives and the number of deaths caused by AIDS, TB and malaria decreased by 46 percent in countries where it invests.

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President Joe Biden said Tuesday the world faces a “code red” on climate change danger as he visited damage from the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in New York and New Jersey.

“We’ve got to listen to the scientists and the economists and the national security experts. They all tell us this is code red,” Biden said in the hard-hit New York borough of Queens, which he toured after visiting Manville, New Jersey.

“The nation and the world are in peril. That’s not hyperbole. That is a fact,” he said.

Biden — who is pushing a giant infrastructure spending bill, including major funding for the green economy — argues that extreme weather across the United States this summer is a harbinger of worse to come.

“This is everybody’s crisis,” he said in the speech. “These disasters aren’t going to stop. They’re only going to come with more frequency and ferocity.”

Systemic upgrading and hardening of the nation’s infrastructure is an urgent need, he asserted, pointing to proposed changes such as flood-proofing power stations, raising up buildings and burying electrical lines.

“You can’t just build back to what it was before, because another tornado, another 10 inches of rain is going produce the same kind of results,” Biden said in earlier remarks in New Jersey.

“I think we’re at one of those inflection points where we’re going to act or we’re going to be in real, real trouble. Our kids are going to be in real trouble.”

Ida struck the US Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane, bringing major flooding and knocking out power to large parts of the heavily populated region, which is also a main hub for the oil industry. Just last week, Biden made a similar tour to Louisiana, where Ida had originally mand landfall.

However, the departing remnants of the hurricane then caught authorities in the New York region by surprise, with ferocious rainfall triggering flash flooding.

The final blast of the storm killed at least 47 people in the US Northeast as it turned streets into raging rivers, inundated basements and shut down the New York subway.

And while one part of the country buckles under hurricane fallout, California and other parts of the western region are struggling to combat ever-fiercer wildfires.

With his presidency straining from the aftermath of the Afghanistan pullout and surging Covid infections at home, Biden faces a difficult coming few weeks, including a struggle to get his infrastructure plans through the narrowly divided Congress.

The White House hopes that the dramatic impact from Hurricane Ida in two different parts of the country will galvanize action on the spending bills.

“It’s so imperative that we act on addressing the climate crisis and investing… through his ‘Build Back Better’ agenda, which is working its way through Congress,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

A global network of more than 1,500 climate NGOs called on Britain to postpone the upcoming COP26 summit, saying Tuesday that a lack of Covid-19 vaccines risked sidelining developing countries.

An increase in Covid cases, unequal global vaccine rollout, and stringent quarantine requirements for more than 60 “red list” nations or territories hoping to attend the 12-day UN talks mean that “a safe, inclusive and just global climate conference is impossible,” the Climate Action Network (CAN) said in a statement.

“Our concern is that those countries most deeply affected by the climate crisis and suffering from the lack of support by rich nations in providing vaccines will be left out,” said Tasneem Essop, CAN’s Executive Director.

“There has always been an inherent power imbalance within the UN climate talks and this is now compounded by the health crisis.”

But the United Nations rejected the call to delay the COP26  summit.

“For now, no changes are planned, but we understand the concerns,”  UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said of the UN Climate Change Conference set to kick off October 31 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Host government Britain had also pushed back saying the climate crisis was too urgent for the meeting to be put off.

A recently released UN climate science report shows “why COP26 must go ahead this November to allow world leaders to come together and set out decisive commitments to tackle climate change”, COP President Alok Sharma told AFP, noting the conference — originally slated for last November — has already been postponed once.

“The global scientific community has made clear that climate change is now a global emergency,” Deupty UN spokesman Haq said.

“Only an urgent and major step up in climate action can keep the goals of the Paris Agreement within reach, and protect the most vulnerable countries and communities from worsening climate impacts.”

He added that UN authorities are working with London “to make COP as safe and inclusive as possible, including offering vaccines to all participants and paying for hotel quarantine costs where quarantine is required”.

The northern hemisphere has been battered over the last three months by record-breaking extreme weather made worse by global warming, according to scientists.

Deadly heatwaves in parts of North America and Europe; unprecedented flooding across western Europe, China and the United States; uncontrolled wildfires around the Mediterranean basin and in California — all were made more intense or likely by global warming.

Britain has said it would cover accommodation costs for delegates subject to the quarantines, and has offered to provide fast-track vaccines. 

“We are working tirelessly with all our partners, including the Scottish Government and the UN, to ensure an inclusive, accessible and safe summit in Glasgow,” Sharma said.

But delegates who have applied for them have yet to get their jabs, according to the NGO group.

– ‘Not fit for purpose’ –

The British government said the vaccinations would start “this week,” and that even with a four-week delay between doses there was still enough time to get the job done before October 31. 

Currently, more than 55 percent of Europeans are fully vaccinated, compared to about three percent in Africa.  

Civil society campaigners, who play a crucial watchdog role as registered observers, will also likely face restricted access, CAN warned. 

Developing countries will be deeply affected by decisions taken at the COP on issues ranging from climate finance, international carbon markets, and how to help poor nations cope with severe climate damages already incurred.

“A climate summit without the voices of those most affected by climate change is not fit for purpose,” said Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based think tank Power Shift Africa.

“If COP26 goes ahead as currently planned, I fear it is only the rich countries and NGOs from those countries that would be able to attend,” he added. 

“This flies in the face of the principles of the UN process and opens the door for a rich nations stitch-up of the talks.”

CAN said the call to postpone COP26 should not be construed as a boycott.

“We will continue our work to push political leaders to deliver ambitious national climate targets, fulfil their responsibilities on climate finance, and phase out fossil fuels,” it said.