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Workers replant mangrove trees in Egypt's Red Sea coast near Marsa Alam. The trees act as a natural barrier against rising seas and extreme weather

On Egypt’s Red Sea coast, fish swim among thousands of newly planted mangroves, part of a programme to boost biodiversity, protect coastlines and fight climate change and its impacts.

After decades of destruction that saw the mangroves cleared, all that remained were fragmented patches totalling some 500 hectares (1,200 acres), the size of only a few hundred football pitches.

Sayed Khalifa, the head of Egypt’s agriculture syndicate who is leading mangrove replanting efforts, calls the unique plants a “treasure” because of their ability to grow in salt water where they face no problems of drought.

“It’s an entire ecosystem,” Khalifa said, knee-deep in the water. “When you plant mangroves, marine life, crustaceans and birds all flock in.”

Between the tentacle-like roots of months-old saplings, small fish and tiny crab larvae dart through the shallows — making the trees key nurseries of marine life.

Khalifa’s team are growing tens of thousands of seedlings in a nursery, which are then used to rehabilitate six key areas on the Red Sea and Sinai coast, aiming to replant some 210 hectares.

But Khalifa dreams of extending the mangroves as far “as possible,” pointing past a yacht marina some six kilometres (four miles) to the south.

The about $50,000-a-year government-backed programme was launched five years ago.

– ‘Punch above their weight’ –

Mangroves also have a powerful impact in combating climate change.

The resilient trees “punch above their weight” absorbing five times more carbon than forests on land, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The stands of trees also help filter out water pollution and act as a natural barrier against rising seas and extreme weather, shielding coastal communities from destructive storms.

UNEP calculates that protecting mangroves is a thousand times cheaper than building seawalls over the same distance.

Despite their value, mangroves have been annihilated worldwide at rapid speed. 

Over a third of mangroves globally have been lost globally, researchers estimate, with losses up to 80 percent in some coastlines of the Indian Ocean.

Mangrove expert Niko Howai, from Britain’s University of Reading, said in the past many governments had not appreciated “the importance of mangroves”, eyeing instead lucrative “opportunities to earn revenue” including through coastal development.

In Egypt’s case, “mass tourism activities and resorts, which cause pollution”, as well as boat activity and oil drilling wreaked havoc on mangroves, said Kamal Shaltout, a botany professor at Egypt’s Tanta University.

Shaltout warned that mangrove restoration efforts “will go to waste” if these threats are not addressed.

“The problem is that the mangroves we have are so limited in number that any damage causes total disruption,” he said.

– Impact of mass tourism –

There is little reliable information to indicate how much has been lost, but Shaltout said “there are areas that have been completely destroyed”, particularly around the major resort town of Hurghada.

Red Sea tourism accounts for 65 percent of Egypt’s vital tourism industry.

The scale of damage, a 2018 study by Shaltout and other researchers found, “probably far exceeds what could be replaced by any replanting programme for years to come”.

Efforts to link up replanted areas will be potentially blocked by barriers of marinas, resorts and coastal settlements.

“Mangroves are hardy, but they are also sensitive, especially as saplings,” Howai said.

“Intermingling mangrove reforestation with existing development projects is not impossible, but it is going to be more challenging.”

To be successful, Shaltout said that tourist operators must be involved, including by tasking resorts with replanting areas themselves.

“It could even come with certain tax benefits, to tell them that just like they have turned a profit, they should also play a role in protecting nature,” the botanist said.

This handout picture released by the Rapa Nui municipality shows moai — stone statues of the Rapa Nui culture — affected by a fire at the Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island, Chile

A forest fire that tore through part of Easter Island has charred some of its fabled monumental carved stone figures, known as moai, authorities said Thursday. 

“Nearly 60 hectares (148 acres) were affected, including some moai,” Carolina Perez, cultural heritage undersecretary, said in a Twitter post. 

On Easter Island, which lies some 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) off the west coast of Chile, 100 hectares have been razed by flames since Monday, Perez said. The area around the Rano Raraku volcano, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the most affected. 

An estimated several hundred moai are in that area, as well as in the quarry where the stone used to carve the sculptures is extracted.

“The damage caused by the fire can’t be undone,” Pedro Edmunds, mayor of Easter Island, told local media. 

There is still no report on the total damage.

But the fire comes just three months after the island was reopened to tourism on August 5, after two years of closure due to Covid-19. 

Before the pandemic, Easter Island — whose main livelihood is tourism — received some 160,000 visitors a year, on two daily flights. 

But with the arrival of Covid-19 in Chile, tourist activity was completely suspended.

The island was long inhabited by Polynesian people, before Chile annexed it in 1888.

This handout picture released by the Rapa Nui municipality shows moai — stone statues of the Rapa Nui culture — affected by a fire at the Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island, Chile

A forest fire that tore through part of Easter Island has charred some of its fabled monumental carved stone figures, known as moai, authorities said Thursday. 

“Nearly 60 hectares (148 acres) were affected, including some moai,” Carolina Perez, cultural heritage undersecretary, said in a Twitter post. 

On Easter Island, which lies some 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) off the west coast of Chile, 100 hectares have been razed by flames since Monday, Perez said. The area around the Rano Raraku volcano, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was the most affected. 

An estimated several hundred moai are in that area, as well as in the quarry where the stone used to carve the sculptures is extracted.

“The damage caused by the fire can’t be undone,” Pedro Edmunds, mayor of Easter Island, told local media. 

There is still no report on the total damage.

But the fire comes just three months after the island was reopened to tourism on August 5, after two years of closure due to Covid-19. 

Before the pandemic, Easter Island — whose main livelihood is tourism — received some 160,000 visitors a year, on two daily flights. 

But with the arrival of Covid-19 in Chile, tourist activity was completely suspended.

The island was long inhabited by Polynesian people, before Chile annexed it in 1888.

(L-R) Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, NASA astronaut Josh Cassada, NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata

A SpaceX capsule carrying a Russian crew member docked Thursday with the International Space Station on a NASA mission that carries significant symbolism amid the war in Ukraine.

The Crew Dragon spaceship “Endurance” blasted off Wednesday from Florida and rendezvoused with the orbiting research outpost some 30 hours later, docking at 5:01 pm Eastern Time (2301 GMT). 

“Crew-5 is happy to have finally arrived at the International Space Station,” said commander Nicole Mann, the first Native American woman in space. “We are looking forward to getting to work.”

Also aboard: Koichi Wakata of Japan, Josh Cassada of the United States and Anna Kikina of Russia, the only female cosmonaut currently in service.

Around two hours after docking, hatches will open allowing the crew to join seven others already on the station: two Russians, four Americans, and an Italian.

Two weeks ago, an American astronaut took off on a Russian Soyuz rocket for the orbital platform.

The long-planned astronaut exchange program has been maintained despite soaring tensions between the United States and Russia since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Ensuring the operation of the ISS has become one of the few remaining areas of cooperation between the United States and Russia.

During a post-launch briefing, Sergei Krikalev, head of the human space program at Roscosmos, hailed the occasion as the start of a “new phase of our cooperation,” evoking the historic Apollo-Soyuz mission of 1975, a symbol of detente at the height of the Cold War. 

Krikalev, a former cosmonaut respected by his American colleagues, has been on something of a charm offensive after the last head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, earlier this year threatened to withdraw cooperation and let the ISS crash over US or European territory.

While Russia has announced plans for its own station, analysts believe it would be difficult to build in the next few years, and withdrawing from the ISS would effectively ground Moscow’s once-proud civilian space program.

A woman wades through the flood waters to get drinking water in Dera Allah Yar, Pakistan; fossil fuel usage is a major contributor to climate change

The World Bank has pumped $14.8 billion into fossil fuel projects globally in the period following the landmark Paris climate accord, a report said Thursday.

Though the multilateral lender pledged in 2018 to end financing for upstream oil and gas, and direct funding had declined, the move failed to include indirect financing, according to the report compiled by an NGO coalition called The Big Shift Global.

It comes amid growing pressure on US President Joe Biden to fire World Bank chief David Malpass, a Trump appointee who has dodged questions about the reality of human-driven climate change.

“Each time the World Bank invests in another fossil fuel project, it fuels more climate disaster,” said Sophie Richmond of Big Shift. “There is no justification for using taxpayers’ money to exacerbate the climate crisis.”

One of the main ways the Bank continued to fund fossil fuels was by exploiting a “major loophole” by lending to intermediaries such as banks or financial institutions and by acting as a guarantor in case a country did not meet its obligations, the report said.

Under the 2015 Paris deal, world leaders committed to limiting long-term warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to avert devastating outcomes for the planet’s future habitability. 

The biggest project listed in the report, called “Investing in Climate Disaster: World Bank Finance for Fossil Fuels,” was the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline in Azerbaijan, funded in 2018 to the tune of $1.1 billion, with the Bank acting as a guarantor. 

“It serves to perpetuate on-going use of fossil gas in Europe,” the report said, while noting that while the pipeline may increase gas export revenues, market volatility makes it an unreliable source of income.

The World Bank Group’s own assessment stated the project was “expected to have potentially significant adverse social and environmental impacts that are diverse, irreversible, or unprecedented” — but it gave a green light anyway.

– Coal plants –

Another project highlighted was the construction of two coal plants in Indonesia called Java 9 and 10, where the Bank supplied $65 million in indirect funds — despite the fact that the Java and Bali grid is already experiencing 40 percent oversupply of electricity.

“It is obvious that the new Java 9 & 10 coal-fired power plants will bring more disaster in terms of environmental, social and health issues, in an area already covered with coal plants and industries,” said Yuyun Indradi of Trend Asia, an NGO that promotes clean energy. 

The report’s authors also rejected the Bank’s treatment of natural gas as a “bridge” between fossil fuels and renewable energy, saying it crowded out needed investments in clean energy.

In a statement to AFP, the World Bank said, “We dispute the findings of the report: it makes inaccurate assumptions about the World Bank Group’s lending. 

“In fiscal year 2022, the Bank Group delivered a record $31.7 billion for climate-related investments, to help communities around the world respond to the climate crisis, and build a safer and cleaner future.”

A separate report published by Oxfam earlier this week said the World Bank “supplies very little evidence to support its claims about the amount of climate finance it provides,” leaving the public to take their figures “on faith.”

A woman wades through the flood waters to get drinking water in Dera Allah Yar, Pakistan; fossil fuel usage is a major contributor to climate change

The World Bank has pumped $14.8 billion into fossil fuel projects globally in the period following the landmark Paris climate accord, a report said Thursday.

Though the multilateral lender pledged in 2018 to end financing for upstream oil and gas, the move failed to include indirect financing via intermediaries, according to the report compiled by an NGO coalition called The Big Shift Global.

It comes amid growing pressure on US President Joe Biden to fire World Bank chief David Malpass, a Trump appointee who has dodged questions about the reality of human-driven climate change.

“Each time the World Bank invests in another fossil fuel project, it fuels more climate disaster,” said Sophie Richmond of the Big Shift Campaign. “There is no justification for using taxpayers’ money to exacerbate the climate crisis.”

Under the 2015 Paris deal, world leaders committed to limiting long-term warming to 1.5 Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to avert devastating outcomes for the planet’s future habitability. 

The biggest project listed in the report, called “Investing in Climate Disaster: World Bank Finance for Fossil Fuels,” was the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline in Azerbaijan, funded in 2018 to the tune of $1.1 billion.

“It serves to perpetuate on-going use of fossil gas in Europe,” the report said, while noting that while the pipeline may increase gas export revenues, market volatility makes it an unreliable source of income.

The World Bank Group’s own assessment stated the project was “expected to have potentially significant adverse social and environmental impacts that are diverse, irreversible, or unprecedented.”

These impacts included “landscape, water quality, air quality, noise levels, waste water, solid waste, hazardous waste, biodiversity, worker health and safety and communities health and safety during construction and operation and physical and economic resettlement.”

Despite this, the project was given the green light. 

Another project highlighted was the construction of two coal plants in Indonesia called Java 9 and 10, where the Bank supplied $65 million in indirect funds — despite the fact that the Java and Bali grid is already experiencing 40 percent oversupply of electricity.

“It is obvious that the new Java 9 & 10 coal-fired power plants will bring more disaster in terms of environmental, social and health issues, in an area already covered with coal plants and industries,” said Yuyun Indradi of Trend Asia, an NGO that promotes clean energy. 

The report’s authors also rejected the Bank’s treatment of natural gas as a “bridge” between fossil fuels and renewable energy, saying it crowded out needed investments in clean energy.

In a statement to AFP, the World Bank said, “We dispute the findings of the report: it makes inaccurate assumptions about the World Bank Group’s lending. 

“In fiscal year 2022, the Bank Group delivered a record $31.7 billion for climate-related investments, to help communities around the world respond to the climate crisis, and build a safer and cleaner future.”

A girl sits on a cot as she crosses a flooded street at Sohbatpur in Jaffarabad district of Balochistan province on October 4, 2022

Between six and nine million Pakistanis are set to be dragged into poverty as a result of cataclysmic monsoon flooding linked to climate change, the World Bank said on Thursday.

Pakistan has been lashed by unprecedented monsoon rains this year which killed 1,700, devastated two million homes, and put a third of the nation underwater.

Eight million people remain displaced, living in ramshackle tent cities and scattered camps near the stagnant lakes which swallowed their belongings and livelihoods.

A World Bank report said Pakistan’s poverty rate is expected to rise between 2.5 and 4 percentage points as a direct consequence of the floods.

Loss of jobs, livestock, harvests, houses, and the closure of schools — as well as spread of disease and rising food costs — threaten to put between 5.8 and 9 million in poverty, it said.

“Reversing these negative socio-economic effects is likely to take considerable time,” it added.

In the nation of 220 million some 20 per cent are already living below the poverty line, according to Asian Development Bank data.

Before the deluges began Pakistan’s coffers were already in dire shape, with a cost-of-living crisis, a nose-diving rupee and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

The World Bank said inflation in the country is set to stand at 23 per cent for the financial year 2023. 

Pakistan is responsible for less than one per cent of global greenhouse gasses, but places highly in rankings of nations vulnerable to extreme weather caused by climate change.

Credible research says severe weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe as a result of man-made emissions.

Islamabad has called for richer and more industrialised nations with larger carbon footprints to contribute to the aid effort as a form of climate justice.

“We have no space to give our economy a stimulus package, which would create jobs, and provide people with the sustainable incomes they need,” said climate change minister Sherry Rehman on Tuesday.

“We are still in a long, relentless struggle to save lives.”

Kenya had banned GM crops over health and safety concerns and to protect small-scale farmers

Activists and agriculture lobby groups on Thursday urged Kenya’s government to reverse its decision to lift a long-standing ban on genetically modified crops as the country struggles with a crippling drought.

The government of newly elected President William Ruto on Monday allowed the open cultivation and import of GM crops, saying it was in response to the drought — the worst to hit the country in 40 years. 

But activists protested the move, raising concerns over the safety of GM foods in a joint statement signed by nearly a dozen groups, including Greenpeace Africa.

“Food security is not just (about) the amount of food but the quality and safety of food,” the statement said.

“Our cultural and indigenous food have proved to be safer, with diverse nutrients and with less harmful chemical inputs.”

Kenya, like many other African nations, banned GM crops over health and safety concerns and to protect smallholder farms, who account for the vast majority of rural agricultural producers in the country.

However, the East African powerhouse had faced criticism over the ban including from the United States which is a major producer of GM crops.

On Monday, a statement issued by Ruto’s office said the decision was “a progressive step towards significantly redefining agriculture in Kenya by adopting crops that are resistant to pests and disease.” 

It said the cabinet had considered expert views and technical reports, including by Kenya’s National Biosafety Authority, the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization, before arriving at a decision.

– ‘Curtails freedom’ –

But the activists said the move was made without public participation and that it “essentially curtails the freedom of Kenyans to choose what they want to eat, or not.”

“We demand that the ban be immediately reinstated and an inclusive participatory process be instituted to look into long-term and sustainable solutions to issues affecting food security,” they said.

They added that the lifting of the ban opened the market to US farmers using sophisticated technologies and highly subsidised farming that risked putting small-scale farmers in Kenya out of business. 

Agriculture is the backbone of Kenya’s economy, contributing over 20 percent to GDP.

Ruto, a former chicken seller turned millionaire businessman, was elected to the top job in August on a promise to turn around Kenya’s stuttering economy and tackle inflation.

Within weeks of taking office in September, he halved the price of fertilisers to improve crop yields in the midst of the drought that has affected 23 of 47 counties. 

Four consecutive rainy seasons have failed in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia, an unprecedented climatic event that has pushed millions across the Horn of Africa into extreme hunger.

Floods in Niger are common during the rainy season — climate change may also be having an impact, its meteorological agency says

Flooding caused by heavy rains in the West African state of Niger has claimed nearly 200 lives and affected more than a quarter of a million people, the Civil Protection Service said on Thursday, describing the toll as one of the highest on record.

Rainy-season floods claimed 192 lives, affected more than 263,000 people and destroyed more than 30,000 homes, as well as classrooms, medical centres and grain stores, it said.

The worst-affected regions are Maradi and Zinder in the centre of the country, Dosso in the southwest and Tahoua in the west.

The rainy season in Niger, located in the heart of the arid Sahel, typically runs from June to September and routinely claims lives.

In 2021, 70 people were killed and 200,000 people were affected. The death toll in 2020 was 73.

Katiellou Gaptia Lawan, head of the national meteorological agency, said this year’s heavy rains were consistent with models of impacts from climate change.

Niger is the world’s poorest country, according to the benchmark of the 2020 Human Development Index devised by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  

Over 4.4 million people — more than a fifth of the population — fall into the category of “severe” food insecurity, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent said in July.

Australia's most populous city Sydney smashed a 70-year annual rainfall record Thursday after a year marked by devastating east coast floods

Australia’s most populous city Sydney smashed a 70-year annual rainfall record Thursday after a year marked by devastating east coast floods.

By early afternoon, Sydney had registered its highest annual rainfall total on record — 2,216 millimetres — with some 86 days still left until the end of the year. 

Sydney’s previous wettest year was 1950, when there were 2,194 millimetres of rain.

It was the highest figure recorded since annual rainfall data for the city of Sydney were first collected in 1858.

With a La Nina weather pattern forecast to bring a wetter-than-average summer, it is likely the final 2022 tally will be significantly higher.

Sydney, along with the broader state of New South Wales, is bracing for another heavy deluge this weekend.

State emergency services minister Steph Cooke said Thursday that more rain could have a severe impact. 

“We know that our catchments are saturated, our dams are full, and our rivers are already swollen. So any additional rainfall, no matter how minor, is likely to exacerbate flooding circumstances,” she said.

“Any additional rainfall has the potential to cause flash flooding.”

The annual rainfall data comes from a weather station in Sydney’s central business district. 

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology said Thursday that flood warnings were in place for large sections of eastern Australia, including parts of Queensland, New South Wales, and northern Victoria.

– Extreme weather – 

The east coast flooding catastrophe in March — caused by heavy storms that devastated parts of Queensland and New South Wales — claimed more than 20 lives. 

Tens of thousands of Sydney residents were ordered to evacuate in July when floods again swamped suburbs on the city’s fridge.

Australia has been at the sharp end of climate change, with droughts, deadly bushfires, bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef and floods becoming more common and intense as global weather patterns change. 

Australia’s east coast has been repeatedly lashed by heavy rainfall in the past two years, driven by back-to-back La Nina cycles.

A rare third consecutive La Nina was recently declared, prompting further rain and flood warnings for the coming summer. 

Higher temperatures mean the atmosphere holds more moisture, unleashing more rain. 

Australia’s Insurance Council has previously estimated more than Aus$5 billion ($3.2 billion) worth of catastrophe claims were made in 2022.  

Catastrophic bushfires swept through huge chunks of New South Wales in the “Black Summer” of 2019 and 2020, scorching 5.5 million hectares — about seven percent of the state’s total landmass.