Pollution and pandemics: A dangerous mix

Washington University in St. Louis

Pollution may bear part of the blame for the rapid proliferation in the United States of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the spread of COVID-19, according to new research.

The United States may have set itself up for the spread of a pandemic without even knowing it.

According to new research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, pollution may bear part of the blame for the rapid proliferation in the United States of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the spread of COVID-19.

The research, from the lab of Rajan Chakrabarty, associate professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, was published online ahead of print in the journal Science of The Total Environment.

When it comes to how ill someone gets after contracting COVID-19, medical professionals believe that a person's health -- having certain medical conditions, for example -- can play a vital role. When it comes to how fast the virus can spread through the community, it turns out the health of the environment is directly correlated to the basic reproduction ratio R0, which denotes the expected number of people each sick person can infect.

The reproduction ratio R0 of COVID-19 associates directly with the long-term ambient PM2.5 exposure levels. And the presence of secondary inorganic components in PM2.5 only makes things worse, according to Chakrabarty.

"We checked for more than 40 confounding factors," Chakrabarty said. Of all of those factors, "There was a strong, linear association between long-term PM2.5 exposure and R0."

PM2.5 refers to ambient particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less; at that size, they can enter a person's lungs and cause damage. For this reason, PM2.5 can be detrimental to respiratory health. But how this relates to the spread of COVID-19 through a population had yet to be explored.

Chakrabarty and his graduate student Payton Beeler, both aerosol researchers who have done previous coronavirus modeling, became interested in the relationship after two papers were published in quick succession. First, a July paper in the journal Science found that levels of susceptibility to COVID-19 is a driving factor for the pandemic; it is more important than temperature, which researchers initially thought might play an outsized role.

Then in August, research published in the Journal of Infection found that the highest number of cases of COVID-19 with severe illness were in places with higher pollution levels.

"I was thinking, why, in the majority of the U.S. states, have we had such a rapid spread of the virus?" Chakrabarty said. Particularly in the earlier stages of the pandemic. "We wanted to confine our study to the point in time when the shutdown was in place. For the most part, people did remain confined from early March until the end of April."

The team decided to look at places where R0 was greater than one -- that's the point at which one person can spread an illness to more than one person, and the illness takes off. In those places, they looked at 43 different factors -- including population density, age distribution, even time delays in states' stay-at-home orders.

Then, using pollution estimates across the U.S. between 2012 and 2017 published by Randall Martin, professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, the team looked for any relationships.

Modeling revealed an increase of almost 0.25 in R0 corresponding to a 10% increase in sulfate, nitrogen dioxide and ammonium, or SNA composition and an increase of 1 ?g/m3 in PM2.5 mass concentrations, respectively.

They found these linear correlations to be strongest in places where pollution levels were well below National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the levels of air pollutants that are considered safe for humans.

"Annual mean PM2.5 national standards are set at or below 12 micrograms per cubic meter, below that you are supposed to be safe," Chakrabarty said. "What we saw, the correlation we're seeing is well below that standard." In fact, they saw a rapid increase in R0 when PM2.5 exposure levels were below 6 micrograms per cubic meter.

Chakrabarty hypothesizes this initial increase in R0, which is followed by a plateau once levels hit 6 micrograms per cubic meter, is a result of initial changes in condition; when the air is free of PM2.5 , an individual is unaffected. The initial exposure is the catalyst for change in lung health resulting in a change from non-susceptibility to susceptibility, which is reflected in the increasing R0.

And although there was no direct correlation between black carbon -- a.k.a. soot -- and R0, researchers did find a connection.

"Our collaborators at Saint Louis University suggested a mediation/moderation statistical approach," a detailed analysis that looks at the way additional variables affect the outcome of the initial relationship. In this case, researchers looked at soot's effect on R0, considering SNA's effect.

"We found black carbon acts as a kind of catalyst. When there is soot present, PM2.5 has more of an acute effect on lung health, and therefore on R0."

The mediation/moderation study was not superfluous -- one of the common ways people are exposed to SNA is through pollution emitted from cars and coal-fired power plants. Both of which also emit soot.

"Although decades of strict air quality regulations in the U.S. have resulted in significant reductions of nitrogen dioxide levels," the authors wrote in the paper's conclusion, "recent reversal of environmental regulations which weaken limits on gaseous emissions from power plants and vehicles threaten the country's future air quality scenario."

"Instead of working to resolve this issue, these reversals may be setting us up for another pandemic," Chakrabarty said.

The Green Digest: COVID-19 cure; Building resilient cities; One Health approach-Indonesia; Green hydrogen.

AFRICA: African cities are encouraged to emulate Cape Town’s response strategy to climate change. Though the climate change strategy in Cape Town is not perfect, other African cities have a lot to learn. Africa’s economic malaise and vulnerability to heat, drought and floods make it the most likely continent to be impacted by climate change.  Despite its vulnerability and inadequacy in combating climate change, only 13 cities in Africa are committed to taking measurable changes against climate change while only five in South Africa have climate change strategies. Cape Town has become the latest city to redraft its climate change strategy which contains 35 goals, aimed towards adaptation and mitigation. However, a major drawback is the omission of nature’s role in their proposed climate action, making the strategy self-defeating.

ASIA: Environmental health scientists are calling for a One Health approach to climate and disease crises. Recent studies have shown that the outbreak of diseases is due to human encroachment of the natural habitats of wild animals. Jatna Supriatna, a conservation biologist in the University of Indonesia, speaking in support of the One Health approach said, “Integrated prevention and mitigation measures were vital to outbreaks resulting from zoonotic pathogens.” The primary causes of these outbreaks, according to Jatna were deforestation and forest conversion.  Deforestation has driven wild animals away from their natural habits to live in proximity with human established settlements. Also Sofia Mubarika of Yogkarta-based Gadjah Mada University suggested that Indonesia should reinforce the One Health approach in order to “address overlapping issues of ecological stability and public health”

COVID-19: German Biotech Company, BioNTech and United States pharmaceuticals, Pfizer have announced a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. However, these early results are known as “interim analysis” and we await the data to undergo “peer-review” through scientific publication. In an analysis carried out on 94 volunteers with COVID-19, the vaccine was suggested to have an efficacy of over 90%. This means that one out of ten people, prone to have COVID-19 will be infected with the disease when the vaccine is administered. The success rate of this vaccine is astounding because the US Food and Drug Administration have announced that they will only approve of a 50% efficacy rating. This latest development has encouraged more vaccines that work better in certain demography to be tested.

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Green hydrogen could be the latest innovation in the energy industry. Although hydrogen has been flaunted as a carbon-free fuel source, its traditional production process is not remotely zero carbon. In this process of production, fossil fuels are exposed to steam, and this is called gray hydrogen. If the CO2 is captured and sequestered, it is known as blue hydrogen. However, green hydrogen is an exception, produced from the process of electrolysis where hydrogen and oxygen are split without any by-product. Companies are currently working to produce electrolyzers that will produce green hydrogen as cheaply as blue and gray hydrogen.

Scientists unravel how and why Amazon trees die

University of Birmingham

The capacity of the Amazon forest to store carbon in a changing climate will ultimately be determined by how fast trees die -- and what kills them. Now, a huge new study has unraveled what factors control tree mortality rates in Amazon forests and helps to explain why tree mortality is increasing across the Amazon basin.

Source: popularmechanics.com

Source: the portugal news

This large analysis found that the mean growth rate of the tree species is the main risk factor behind Amazon tree death, with faster-growing trees dying off at a younger age. These findings have important consequences for our understanding of the future of these forests. Climate change tends to select fast-growing species. If the forests selected by climate change are more likely die younger, they will also store less carbon.

The study, co-led by the Universities of Birmingham and Leeds in collaboration with more than 100 scientists, is the first large scale analysis of the causes of tree death in the Amazon and uses long-term records gathered by the international RAINFOR network.

The results published in Nature Communications, show that species-level growth rates are a key risk factor for tree mortality.

"Understanding the main drivers of tree death allows us to better predict and plan for future trends -- but this is a huge undertaking as there are more than 15,000 different tree species in the Amazon," said lead author Dr Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, of the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research.

Dr David Galbraith, from the University of Leeds added "We found a strong tendency for faster-growing species to die more, meaning they have shorter life spans. While climate change has provided favourable conditions for these species, because they also die more quickly the carbon sequestration service provided by Amazon trees is declining."

Tree mortality is a rare event so to truly understand it requires huge amounts of data. The RAINFOR network has assembled more than 30 years of contributions from more than 100 scientists. It includes records from 189 one-hectare plots, each visited and monitored on average every 3 years. Each visit, researchers measure all trees above 10cm in diameter as well as the condition of every tree.

In total more than 124,000 living trees were followed, and 18,000 tree deaths recorded and analysed. When trees die, the researcher follows a fixed protocol to unravel the actual cause of death. "This involves detailed, forensic work and amounts to a massive 'CSI Amazon' effort conducted by skilled investigators from a dozen nations," noted Prof. Oliver Phillips, from the University of Leeds.

Dr Beatriz Marimon, from UNEMAT, who coordinates multiple plots in central Brazil added: "Now that we can see more clearly what is going on across the whole forest, there are clear opportunities for action. We find that drought is also driving tree death, but so far only in the South of the Amazon. What is happening here should serve as an early warning system as we need to prevent the same

Large volcanic eruption caused the largest mass extinction

Tohoku University

Researchers in Japan, the US and China say they have found more concrete evidence of the volcanic cause of the largest mass extinction of life. Their research looked at two discrete eruption events: one that was previously unknown to researchers, and the other that resulted in large swaths of terrestrial and marine life going extinct.

There have been five mass extinctions since the divergent evolution of early animals 450 -- 600 million years ago. The third was the largest one and is thought to have been triggered by the eruption of the Siberian Traps -- a large region of volcanic rock known as a large igneous province. But the correlation between the eruption and mass extinction has not yet been clarified.

Sedimentary mercury enrichments, proxies for massive volcanic events, have been detected in dozens of sedimentary rocks from the end of the Permian. These rocks have been found deposited inland, in shallow seas and central oceans, but uncertainty remains as to their interpretation. Mercury can be sourced from either direct atmospheric deposition from volcanic emissions and riverine inputs from terrestrial organic matter oxidation when land/plant devastation -- referred to as terrestrial ecological disturbance -- occurs.

The largest mass extinction occurred at the end of the Permian -- roughly 252 million years ago. This mass extinction was marked by the transition from the divergence of the Paleozoic reptiles and marine animals like brachiopods and trilobites to Mesozoic dinosaurs and marine animals such as mollusks. Approximately 90% of species disappeared at the end of the Permian.

Current professor emeritus at Tohoku University, Kunio Kaiho led a team that looked into possible triggers of the largest mass extinction. They took sedimentary rock samples from two places -- southern China and Italy -- and analyzed the organic molecules and mercury (Hg) in them. They found two discrete coronene-Hg enrichments coinciding with the first terrestrial ecological disturbance and the following mass extinction in both areas.

"We believe this to be the product of large volcanic eruptions because the coronene anomaly was formed by abnormally high temperature combustion," says professor Kaiho. "High temperature magma or asteroid/comet impacts can make such a coronene enrichment.

From the volcanic aspect, this could have occurred because of the higher temperature combustion of living and fossil organic matter from lava flows and horizontally intruded magma (sill) into the sedimentary coal and oil. The different magnitude of the two coronene-mercury enrichments shows that the terrestrial ecosystem was disrupted by smaller global environmental changes than the marine ecosystem. The duration between the two volcanic events is tens of thousands of years."

Huge volcanic eruptions can produce sulfuric acid aerosols in the stratosphere and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which causes global climate changes. This rapid climate change is believed to be behind the loss of land and marine creatures.

Coronene is a highly condensed six-ring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, which requires significantly higher energy to form as compared to smaller PAHs. Therefore, high temperature volcanic combustion can cause the coronene enrichments. This means that high temperature combustion of hydrocarbons in the sedimentary rocks by lateral intrusion of magmas formed CO2 and CH4 causing high pressure and eruption to induce global warming and the mass extinction. The coronene-mercury concentration firstly evidenced that volcanic hydrocarbon combustion helped contribute to the extinction through global warming.

Kaiho's team is now studying other mass extinctions in the hopes of further understanding the cause and processes behind them.

Climate heroes: the countries pioneering a green future

Jonathan Watts

From Spain to South Korea, there are several global success stories in the drive to become carbon neutral

While the world must wait to see whether US president-elect Joe Biden can fulfil his election promise of a $2tn Green New Deal, nations elsewhere in the world are setting carbon-neutral targets and pushing ahead with mega-programmes to cut emissions, create jobs and reduce energy prices. Here are some of the regional frontrunners.

Last week, the government was the latest to announce plans to go carbon neutral by 2050 and it is overseeing one of the fastest shifts away from coal the world has seen.

Over the coming three years, Spain has committed €27bn to green energy spending – a downpayment on the €750bn investment it forecasts will be needed to fund the move away from fossil fuels. By 2050, the decarbonisation strategy envisages a 90% reduction in emissions, the reforestation of 20,000 hectares and the recovery of 50,000 hectares of wetlands. Renewable power, meanwhile, will rise from 20% of the energy mix to 97%.

Action is already under way. In May, the cabinet approved a draft law on climate change, which outlined more ambitious goals than the EU at the time on renewables and energy efficiency. The bill would ban new coal, oil and gas extraction projects and end direct fossil fuel subsidies.

Spain is also shutting down 69% of its coal-fired power plants this year and next – a pace of decommissioning not seen anywhere else in the world. Last year, Spain installed more new onshore wind than any other country in Europe.

Far from being a drain on employment and economy, the Spanish government says its decarbonisation plan will increase the workforce by 1.6%. But the country will have to convince investors that its legal framework is more stable this time than during the “solar garden” bubble that followed subsidy promises in 2007. When those were abolished, confidence in the sector took at hit along with jobs.

The ecological transition minister, Teresa Ribera, predicts the country will go well beyond the 2030 targets set by the European commission and has promised to push for still more ambitious policies in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

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This is part of a broader trend. In Europe, renewables have generated more power than coal for the first time this year. The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said she wants Europe to be the world’s first carbon-neutral continent. Over the next 10 years, the commission forecasts investment of at least €1tn to achieve this goal, including a quarter of the EU budget. This month, the European parliament voted in favour of climate neutrality by 2050 and 60% cuts in emissions by 2030 (compared with 1990 levels). Further progress has been seen in individual countries, including Denmark, Germany, France and (outside the EU) Britain.

Asia: South Korea

Four years after being labelled the world’s biggest carbon villain, South Korea has bid to be one of the heroes this year with a $61bn Green New Deal and a commitment to go carbon neutral by 2050.

President Moon Jae-in has moved to end South Korea’s dependence on coal and create green jobs as his party promised in April’s successful election campaign for the national assembly.

By 2025, the Green New Deal would bring about 230,000 more energy-saving buildings, 1.13m electric and hydrogen-powered cars, and an increase in renewable energy capacity to 42.7 GW from 12.7 GW last year.

Money will also be made available to upgrade public rental housing and schools to make them zero-energy, and to expand green areas in cities. To improve energy efficiency, smart meters will be fitted in an additional 5 million apartments and communities will be given incentives to connect to micro-grids supplied with decentralised, low-carbon energy.

The plan aims to support Korean industrial conglomerates that have been hard hit by the pandemic. Hyundai, Kia, Samsung and EM Korea will be among the biggest beneficiaries of plans to build 45,000 new electric vehicle charging points and 450 hydrogen refuelling units.

Tempering the optimism is South Korea’s past record of high emissions and false hopes. The last time the country promised “green growth” – after the 2008-9 financial crisis – it led to an environmentally disastrous policy of more concrete riverbanks and higher emissions. Today, coal supplies about 40% of Korea’s electricity and seven new coal power plants are under construction. In 2016, activists labelled South Korea the world’s biggest carbon villain.

A new generation of campaigners believe South Korea has turned a new page. They want to see an early halt to overseas coal financing and a strong 2030 target to reduce domestic emissions.

They are encouraged by signs of a climate race-to-the-top in east Asia, where the opposite has long been true. China and Japan are also major users and funders of coal, but both countries have committed this year to carbon-neutral goals.

Latin America: Uruguay

Last year, Uruguay was ranked fourth in the world in the proportion of electricity it supplies from wind and solar. The International Energy Agency said the country’s 36% share was behind only Denmark (50%), Lithuania (41%) and Luxembourg (37%). If hydropower is added, Uruguay leaps ahead of them all with 97%.

This represents a spectacular transition. Twenty years ago, this South American country burned oil to produce almost a third of its electricity and had to import power from Argentina. The change came between 2008 and 2015 under former presidents Tabaré Vázquez and José Mujica, who wanted to reduce costs and make energy more affordable.

The secret was a proactive state rather than a big-spending one. Government encouraged investors by promising fixed feed-in tariffs and stable policies. More than US$7bn poured into the sector, helping Uruguay to reduce its emissions by 20%. Droughts have also been rarer because the grid is less dependent on hydropower.

Asad Rehman, the co-organiser of Global Green New Deal Campaign, said the success of Uruguay’s transition reflects an ideal balance of social and climate priorities. “It is not just about carbon, but also cutting energy prices and tackling energy poverty. Social justice is an imperative.”

The picture is mixed elsewhere in South and Central America. Costa Rica has won international kudos for generating almost all of its electricity with renewables, particularly geothermal and hydropower. The latter also provides most of the power for Brazil and Paraguay though it often has a devastating impact on ecosystems and wildlife.

Africa: Kenya

Renewables already provide more than 93% of Kenya’s electricity and the government plans to expand further so everyone in the country has access either to the grid or community solar power by 2022.

The carbon footprint of the population of 47 million is tiny compared with wealthy nations in the northern hemisphere so economic – rather than climate – considerations are the main drivers for an energy transition. Solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal energy is increasingly cheaper and more practical than fossil fuels. The main challenge is securing the initial investment.

The country has substantial renewable resources to tap, prompting many observers to say it has the potential to bypass fossil fuel-driven economic development. Last month, the African Development Bank announced the completion of the 105 MWe Menengai geothermal power plant in the Rift Valley, cementing Kenya’s leading role on the continent for geothermal electricity production, which has increased more than fourfold in the past six years.

Kenya is also home to east Africa’s biggest solar generation plant – the $128.5m China-funded Garissa Plant where more than 200,000 PV panels soak up the energy from the sunshine each day. In many remote areas, small villages that are far from the grid are able to generate electricity with just a few dozen rooftop panels.

These developments – along with expanded wind and hydropower – have pushed the proportion of the population with electricity from 63% in 2017 to 75% today.

Heymi Bahar, the lead author of the International Energy Agency’s Renewables market report, said Kenya along with other African nations, such as Rwanda and Nigeria, “have a chance to leapfrog” fossil fuel energy systems if they can draw in more private investment. That once meant expensive subsidies, but Bahar said this is no longer the case. Good regulations and policies are enough.

“Renewables are becoming cheaper and more accessible. In Africa, the potential is there, the willingness is there,” he said. “Renewables do not need subsidies any more. They just need long-term revenue streams. That is determined by clear policies.”

The Green Digest: Constitutional coup in Africa; Climate; Investment shortfalls; Educational reformation

AFRICA: Democracy in Africa is threatened by the rise of constitutional coup, resulting from Africa’s inadequacy to deal with abuses of power and human rights. Constitutional coup is a term used when leaders subvert their constitutions to remain in power for an extended period. Subservient legislators loyal to African dictators have been crucial to the annulment of the “two-term limit” accorded to politicians. Many of these dictators have capitalized on this annulment to stay in power indefinitely becoming tyrants in the process. Such presidents that have changed their constitution to extend their rule include but not limited to Presidents; Gnassingbe (Togo), Museveni (Uganda), Kagame (Rwanda) and the late Nkurunziza (Burundi).

CLIMATE CHANGE: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on climate discussions has led to the postponement of the meeting of Conference of the Parties (COP) to November 2021. For the first time ever, the world will go without climate talks since the formation of COP. However, the successes of these meetings held by COP are difficult to measure or hidden in national climate policies. An example of this hidden success is found in Chile’s ambitious plan to phase out coal-generated electricity. In trying to sign the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) agreement, the Chilean minister of environment, Marcelo Mena was opposed by Chile’s electricity generation companies. Their argument was that “Chile was not ready to take on such a bold commitment without further analysis”, and provided an alternative where Chile would phase out coal on its own terms. Moving forward, what does the future hold for climate discussions?

SDGs: Standard Chartered research has uncovered an investment shortfall in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. According to a survey conducted between July and August 2020 amongst 300 of the world’s top investment firms, 20 percent are unaware of the UN’s SDGs. These firms are reported to have in their possession assets under management (AUM) of over USD 50 trillion, of which only 13 percent are attributed to the SDGs. Some 55 percent claim that the SDGs are not important to mainstream investment while 47 percent claim that the SDGs are too hard to measure. Finally, the report showed that two-thirds (64 percent) of investments are channeled into developed markets seeing a massive shortfall in emerging markets (10 percent) of Africa, Middle East and South America.

UNITED STATES: The current system of education in America has been referred to as the “horse and buggy” model of education dating back to the industrial revolution. Analysts argue that this system does not prepare children to thrive in the 21st century. According to their reports, the highest quality of education is reserved for the most affluent students, while their peers are considered “products” to a “factory model” of education that emerged in the early 20th century. However, various educational reforms such as the development of the Common Core State Standards (2009) which were adopted have proven insufficient.

Pfizer, BioNTech say Covid vaccine is more than 90% effective — ‘great day for science and humanity’

Pfizer and BioNTech announced Monday their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 among those without evidence of prior infection, hailing the development as “a great day for science and humanity.”

“I think we can see light at the end of the tunnel,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Dr. Albert Bourla told CNBC’s Meg Tirrell on “Squawk Box.” “I believe this is likely the most significant medical advance in the last 100 years, if you count the impact this will have in public health, global economy.”

The announcement comes as drugmakers and research centers scrambled to deliver a safe and effective vaccine to help bring an end to the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed over 1.2 million lives worldwide.

Scientists are hoping for a coronavirus vaccine that is at least 75% effective, while White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has said one that is 50% or 60% effective would be acceptable.

U.S. stock futures skyrocketed as investors cheered the news. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 1,646 points, implying an opening gain of more than 1,630 points. By late morning, the Dow was up more than 1,000 points, a rise of 3.7%.

Airline and cruise company stocks jumped in premarket trading — with some stocks rising by 20% and 30%. Both industries have been significantly affected by the global health crisis as travel restrictions and a resurgence in outbreaks continue to hurt demand. 

Pfizer’s results were based on the first interim efficacy analysis conducted by an external and independent Data Monitoring Committee from the phase three clinical study. The independent group of experts oversees U.S. clinical trials to ensure the safety of participants.

The analysis evaluated 94 confirmed Covid-19 infections among the trial’s 43,538 participants. Pfizer and the U.S. pharmaceutical giant’s German biotech partner said the case split between vaccinated individuals and those who received a placebo indicated a vaccine efficacy rate of above 90% at seven days after the second dose.

It means that protection from Covid-19 is achieved 28 days after the initial vaccination, which consists of a two-dose schedule. The final vaccine efficacy percentage may vary, however, as safety and additional data continue to be collected.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA commissioner and a member of Pfizer’s board, told CNBC the vaccine could be available in limited use as early as late December and widely available by the third quarter of 2021.

“The first set of results from our Phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent COVID-19,” Bourla said in a statement.

“We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen,” Bourla continued.

“With today’s news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis. We look forward to sharing additional efficacy and safety data generated from thousands of participants in the coming weeks.”

Distribution challenges

Roughly 42% of the trial’s global participants had racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds, Pfizer and BioNTech said, adding that there haven’t been any serious safety concerns reported yet.

The companies said they planned to submit for emergency use authorization to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration soon after they have two months of data, which is currently on track for the third week of November.

Based on current projections, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to produce up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020, and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021. The vaccine requires two doses per person. Though the companies didn’t take any money from the federal government for research and development for the drug, they reached a nearly $2 billion agreement in July to supply 100 million doses to the U.S. government as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed. That money is helping with manufacturing and distribution.

Plans to deliver hundreds of millions of coronavirus vaccines around the world raise questions about logistics and distribution in part because of the need to store and transport them in supercooled containers.

Pfizer’s vaccine requires a storage temperature of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, Moderna has said its vaccine must be stored at minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.

The company reportedly plans to load suitcase-sized boxes from distribution sites in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Puurs, Belgium, onto as many as two dozen trucks per day, allowing for the daily transit of roughly 7.6 million doses to nearby airports.

The companies said they plan to submit data from the full phase three trial, which began on July 27, for scientific peer-review publication.

‘Let’s take a deep breath’

“The U.S. FDA set a threshold of 50% effectiveness for a Covid-19 vaccine to merit approval. A 90% effective vaccine would be extraordinary,” Dr. Peter Drobac, a global health physician and director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Oxford, said via email.

“We’ll need to see the full results subjected to independent review. Let’s take a deep breath, but this is very promising news,” he added.

U.S. officials and scientists are hopeful a vaccine to prevent Covid-19 will be ready in the first half of 2021 — 12 to 18 months since Chinese scientists first identified the coronavirus and mapped its genetic sequence.

It’s a record-breaking time frame for a process that normally takes about a decade for an effective and safe vaccine. The fastest-ever vaccine development, mumps, took more than four years and was licensed in 1967.

A more than 90% effective coronavirus vaccine would be roughly on par with one dose of a measles vaccination, which is about 93% effective, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Comparatively, the CDC says a vaccine for influenza reduces the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population.

— CNBC’s Berkeley Lovelace Jr. contributed to this report.

Revealed: Covid recovery plans threaten global climate hopes

Exclusive: analysis finds countries pouring money into fossil fuels to fight recession

The prospect of a global green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is hanging in the balance, as countries pour money into the fossil fuel economy to stave off a devastating recession, an analysis for the Guardian reveals.

Meanwhile, promises of a low-carbon boost are failing to materialise. Only a handful of major countries are pumping rescue funds into low-carbon efforts such as renewable power, electric vehicles and energy efficiency.

A new Guardian ranking finds the EU is a frontrunner, devoting 30% of its €750bn (£677bn) Next Generation Recovery Fund to green ends. France and Germany have earmarked about €30bn and €50bn respectively of their own additional stimulus for environmental spending.

On the other end of the scale, China is faring the worst of the major economies, with only 0.3% of its package – about £1.1bn – slated for green projects. In the US, before the election, only about $26bn (£19.8bn), or just over 1%, of the announced spending was green.

How a Biden presidency plans to lead a global green recovery

Guardian graphic. Source: Vivid Economics

In at least 18 of the world’s biggest economies, more than six months on from the first wave of lockdowns in the early spring, pandemic rescue packages are dominated by spending that has a harmful environmental impact, such as bailouts for oil or new high-carbon infrastructure, outweighing the positive climate benefits of any green spending, according to the analysis.

Only four countries – France, Spain, the UK and Germany – and the EU have packages that will produce a net environmental benefit.

“The natural environment and climate change have not been a core part of the thinking in the bulk of recovery plans,” said Jason Eis, chief executive of Vivid Economics, which compiled the index for the Guardian. “In the majority of countries we are not seeing a green recovery coming through at all.”

Even countries that have boasted of green recovery plans are frequently spending much more on activities that will maintain or increase greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea set out plans for a green new deal in July, worth about $135bn. But its continued spending on fossil fuels and carbon-intensive industries means it ranks only eighth in the world for the greenness of its stimulus.

Canada similarly is spending C$6bn (£3.5bn) of its infrastructure funding on home insulation, green transport and clean energy, but its total rescue package is worth more than $300bn and contains measures such as a massive road expansion and tax relief for fossil fuel companies. India is spending about $830m on its green economy, but plans to prop up coal have dragged down its performance.

But the election of Joe Biden as US president has the potential to transform the green recovery globally, the Vivid analysis shows. Although he may face a Republican majority in the Senate, if Biden’s plans for a $2tn green stimulus were implemented in full the US would overtake the EU as the biggest investor in a low-carbon future.

“That would be a transformative shift,” said Eis. “These are very bold plans from Biden, and it would be a huge signal to other countries. They would mean the US could start a race-to-the-top dynamic globally, especially with China, for a green recovery.”

Biden wants to boost renewable energy, powering the US entirely through clean energy by 2035 and reaching net zero emissions by 2050, investing $1.7tn over the next decade, with the expectation of private investment taking the total to $5tn. However, his plans must pass a hostile Republican Senate and will face opposition and possible legal challenges from sections of US business, and potentially some states.

Yet even if only a portion of Biden’s green plans survived intact, that could still have a powerful transformative effect, both on the US economy and around the world, said Eis. “You would expect there to be some compromise, but compared with where the US is now there would be a huge shift [in green spending] under a Biden presidency,” he said. “Many other countries are influenced by the perception of US leadership. Having the US at the G20 table pushing a green recovery would certainly help.”

Countries failing to initiate a green recovery were missing out on the potential to create millions of jobs, added Ed Barbier, professor of economics at Colorado State University, whose landmark study of the 2008 financial crisis pegged that recovery as about 16% green. “There is huge potential for boosting employment, particularly in construction,” he said, pointing to measures such as installing home insulation, solar panels and electric car charging infrastructure, which are labour-intensive and often “shovel-ready”.

While countries fail to muster a green recovery, they are also falling behind on their obligations under the Paris climate agreement. The International Energy Agency has calculated, exclusively for the Guardian, that countries are planning emissions cuts that amount to only 15% of the reductions needed to fulfil the Paris agreement. The IEA has also found that China’s emissions, which dipped sharply in the initial phases of the pandemic, have already rebounded to 2019 levels and are likely to exceed them.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said: “China has not yet started on a green recovery. But they have not yet missed the opportunity for a Chinese reset, if China changes its next five-year plan [due to be settled next March]. Whatever China builds now should be green.”

Without China, a global green recovery looks impossible. “If China does not come up with green recovery packages, putting a new five-year plan in line with the target of net zero, then the world’s chances of reaching its climate targets will be close to zero,” Birol warned.

Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis, found that governments in many countries, far from prioritising low-carbon growth, were bolstering carbon-intensive industries and loosening environmental regulations. Niklas Höhne, of the NewClimate Institute, one of the partner organisations behind CAT, warned: “What we’re seeing more of is governments using the pandemic recovery to roll back climate legislation and bail out the fossil fuel industry, especially in the US, but also in Brazil, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries.”

However, Lord Nicholas Stern, the climate economist, said countries still had time to move into a new phase of recovery, where green spending could be prioritised. Most of the initial $12tn in rescue packages around the world has gone to increase liquidity, prop up wages and stop companies going bust, which offers little opportunity for greening.

When it comes to the next stage, in a few months’ time, countries must have green plans ready, said Stern. “The green recovery has been delayed because we are still dealing with the virus, except in countries such as China,” he said. “Had we done better at managing the virus in Europe, I would have said we should be doing better by now [at a green recovery]. But we are still in the lockdown and rescue phase. The recovery can’t kick in until we are doing better at managing the virus.”

The Green Digest: Army-Civilian clash in Nigeria; Global food system emissions; Race for EVs in Europe; USA

AFRICA: The dichotomy between Nigerian civilians and the military has emphasized the inefficiency of the military in handling civil unrest. The just concluded #EndSars protest, where the military was accused of the mass shooting at Lekki toll gate has brought to limelight the heated relationship between civilians and soldiers. In an interview with Wale Fatade, from The Conversation Africa, Kester Onor, a lecturer of the department of political science and international relations at covenant university, was of the opinion that “soldiers can be used to deal with civil protest.” He further went on to deny Nigeria’s democratic status, stating that Nigeria is practicing “pseudo-democracy” at best, and is yet to demilitarize its society. While differentiating the unique roles between the Nigerian police and army, he gave the suggestion of setting up a military unit that specializes in civilian protest similar to the National Guard of United States.

GLOBAL WARMING: Emissions from global food system threaten warming beyond 1.5oC. Current policies and interventions are usually geared towards fossil fuel emissions in other sectors, neglecting the impact of agriculture on climate change. According to a joint research by John Lynch, postdoctoral researcher in physics at the University of Oxford, if global food system continues as usual, it will warm the earth beyond 1.5oC rise in 2060. Howbeit, this outcome is not inevitable if improvements to “what we eat and how we farm” are pursued with urgency. The same intensity of effort applied to reduction of carbon emission in other sectors should be applied to agriculture. These efforts include but not limited to halting deforestation for new farmlands and switching energy sources used in farming operations from fossil fuels to renewables.

UNITED KINGDOM: As the word transitions to a net zero economy, the phasing out of petrol and diesel vehicles by 2030 is set to boost the United Kingdom’s economy when the right policies are implemented. Government’s intended plan to phase out polluting vehicles by 2040 has been pulled forward to 2035. However, debates and investigations are ongoing to bring forward the date to 2030.  According to a recent report published today by Greenpeace, the creation of 32,000 new jobs, and an increased GDP of 4.2 billion pounds are the rewards of an early adoption (in 2030) as opposed to the set date of 2040. Another importance of an early adoption by the UK is having a larger market share of electric vehicles (EVs) in both domestic and European markets. The report also argues that in addition to a ‘first-mover advantage’, the UK also has additional economic gains, especially through the development of a UK-based Gigafactory.

UNITED STATES: Joe Biden’s election to the white house could see a total transformation of policies parallel to the Trump administration. Prominent among these policies include racial justice, climate justice, policing and international relations. The American people are counting on Biden to make true his campaign words by restoring the “soul of America”. However, some of these policies would be hardly effected if he doesn’t win the opinion of the Senate.

Two new greater glider species discovered: 'Australia’s biodiversity just got a lot richer'

Graham Readfearn

One of the world’s biggest gliding mammals, Australia’s greater glider is actually three separate species, according to new research

One of the world’s biggest gliding mammals, Australia’s once-common and unique greater glider, actually comprises three separate species, according to new genetic research.

Researchers said the findings should prompt urgent work to better understand the three species which are under pressure from rising temperatures, bushfires and land-clearing.

The study adds two new marsupials to Australia’s list of species and creates new challenges for protecting the three animals which are all unique to Australia.

Greater gliders were listed as vulnerable by the federal government even before last summer’s bushfire’s burned about one-third of their habitat.

The quiet marsupials are roughly the size of a cat, are nocturnal, have distinctively fluffy fur and eat only eucalyptus leaves. They launch themselves from trees and spread out a membrane attached to their elbows to glide as far as 100 metres – using their long tails like a rudder.

Ecologists knew that greater gliders were different sizes and colours in different places up and down the east coast of Australia, but disagreements over their classification – or taxonomy – had not been settled.

Researchers from The Australian National University, James Cook University, the University of Canberra and CSIRO came together to run genetic tests from tissue samples taken from gliders in parts of Queensland, Victoria and from museum specimens.

“We found they were profoundly different,” said Dr Kara Youngentob, a wildlife ecologist at ANU and co-author of the study published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The research suggests greater gliders, with the Latin name Petauroides volans, are three distinct species that now include Petauroides minor and Petauroides armillatus.

The findings mean that Petauroides volans, which was previously thought to have a range as far north as Townsville, was now much less widely-dispersed and concentrated more to the south.

The impacts of the 2019 and 2020 bushfires on that species should now be understood to be proportionately greater, Youngentob said.

“This also means that we know almost nothing about those two other species. If we don’t start working them out we could end up losing them,” she said.

Splitting the one species into three now means assumptions that the greater glider lives from Victoria to Townsville in northeastern Queensland will have to be rethought.

Prof Andrew Krockenberger, of James Cook University and one of the researchers, said genetic analysis confirmed a long-held theory the greater glider could actually be multiple species.

“Australia’s biodiversity just got a lot richer. It’s not every day that new mammals are confirmed, let alone two new mammals,” he said.

PhD student at JCU, Denise McGregor, who led the study, said: “There has been speculation for a while that there was more than one species of greater glider but now we have proof from the DNA. It changes the whole way we think about them.”

An early assessment of the impact of Australia’s Black Summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020 suggested about 29% of greater glider habitat overlapped with the fires.

Greater gliders need older trees with hollows where they can hide during the day.

Youngentob said greater gliders were “an awesome animal” and resembled “a giant square of skin” as they glide.

“They are the sweetest-natured animals,” she said. “During mating season you will see them sitting together with their long fluffy tails intertwined.”

She said greater glider numbers had fallen sharply in recent decades as a result of tree clearing, bushfires and global heating that was raising night-time temperatures to levels difficult for the marsupials to tolerate.

Prof Brendan Wintle, a conservation ecologist at the University of Melbourne who was not involved in the research, said the results suggested that Petauroides minor was mostly restricted to Queensland with some habitat overlapping with areas of development.

He said Petauroides volans was known to be sharply declining in numbers and if the other two species were suffering a similar fate, “then we have a significant challenge to manage that.”

He told the Guardian: “It would be an absolute tragedy if we lost this animal and it would be up there with losing the Tasmanian tigers.

“They are so unique and it’s amazing that we could know so little about such a large attractive animal.

“They are quite secretive and even though they’re very large, they’ll often be in the bush at the back of people’s farms and people would never know they were there.

“When you do see them, they’re like a big fluffy animal that’s like a great big cat … but this one can fly. Fortunately, they’re vegetarians.”

The Green Digest: Emergence and Prevention of Zoonotic diseases; United States climate commitment

AFRICA: West and Central Africa are set to adopt the One Health approach following the recent zoonotic diseases in West Africa including; Ebola, anthrax, and the pathogenic avian influenza. The relationship between human, animal, and environmental health is pivotal to curbing the spread of diseases nationally, regionally, and globally. The advantages of this approach can be seen in countries like Liberia where there has been a reduction in the risk of new emerging pandemics. Also, to strengthen the One Health approach, participation and awareness campaigns in Senegal and Cote d’ Ivoire have been organized by stakeholders to make attitudinal changes, in order to address health challenges and threats at animal-human-ecosystem interface.

COVID-19: The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on energy transition has been uncovered by Japanese researchers. One of the primary finding of the research is that the earth is a closed system, and this discovery is pivotal in tackling the global challenge of climate change. Although during the pandemic, the environment reaped commensurate gains in the reduction of greenhouse emission and improved air quality, the Sustainable Development Goals have been sabotaged by rising nationalism. More so, according to the research, the negative impact of the pandemic on the SDGs has been found to affect SDGs 10(reduced inequalities), 13(climate action) and 17(partnership for the goals).

DISEASES: Ecosystems are gradually becoming hotspots for emerging diseases. Experts have confirmed that the Hindu Kush Himalayas bestowed with a wide range of wildlife species brings higher risks of diseases. Human interference with the natural world has launched us into an “era of pandemics” which is caused by zoonoses (diseases that spread from animals to humans). According to experts convened by the United Nations Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, more than five diseases affect people each year and any one has the potential to become a pandemic.

UNITED STATES: The United States has finally withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement was a consensual undertaking of countries to limit carbon emissions below 2oC. The withdrawal which was announced in June 2017 by President Donald Trump has taken effect on November 4 2020. According to BBC reports, America becomes the first country to do so. Andrew Light, a climate change official in the Obama administration has opposed Trump’s decision stating how it hurts the US reputation. However, Democratic nominee Joe Biden has promised that America will rejoin if he is elected president.

UK health professions call for climate tax on meat

Damian Carrington

Food with heavy environmental impact should be taxed by 2025 unless food industry acts voluntarily, says alliance

A powerful coalition of the UK’s health professions has called for a climate tax to be imposed on food with a heavy environmental impact by 2025, unless the industry takes voluntary action on the impact of their products.

The group says the climate crisis cannot be solved without action to cut the consumption of food that causes high emissions, such as red meat and dairy products. But it says that more sustainable diets are also healthier and would reduce illness.

The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC) includes 10 Royal Colleges of medicine and nursing, the British Medical Association and the Lancet, representing the doctors, nurses and other professionals entrusted with caring for the country’s health.

The alliance’s new report makes a series of recommendations including a swift end to buy-one-get-one-free offers for food that is bad for health and the environment, and for perishable foods that are often wasted.

It also calls for public information campaigns on diet to include climate messages, for labels on food to reveal its environmental impact, and for the £2bn spent every year on catering in schools, hospitals, care homes and prisons to meet minimum environmental standards.

A YouGov poll of healthcare professionals for UKHACC found two-thirds agreeing that environmentally friendly diets can also improve your health, while 40% had already changed their own eating habits due to environmental concerns.

Food production is responsible for a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and a series of scientific studies have shown that red meat and dairy have far bigger impacts than plant-based food. People in rich nations already eat more meat than is healthy and in the UK only one in three eat the recommended five daily portions of fruit and vegetables.

“We can’t reach our goals without addressing our food system,” said Kristin Bash, who leads the Faculty of Public Health’s food group and was a co-author of the UKHACC report. “The climate crisis isn’t something we should see as far in the future. It’s time to take these issues seriously now.”

Bash said the report was not telling people to become vegans: “It’s just saying increase your consumption of plant protein. It’s a simple message and something that’s widely supported by health organisations around the world.”

Nicky Philpott, the director of UKHACC, said taxes on plastic bags and sugary soft drinks had shown such policies can reduce harmful activities. The report said the government should state an intention to levy a food carbon tax on all food producers if voluntary action on the full climate impact of food products is not taken by the industry by 2025.

Marco Springmann, at the University of Oxford and not involved in the report, said there was substantial scientific evidence on the close connection between public and planetary health: “The message is clear: without drastic reduction in the production and consumption of meat and dairy, there is little chance of avoiding dangerous levels of climate change.”

“UKHACC is right in stressing that dietary changes of the scale required will not happen without strong policy support,” he said.

Henry Dimbleby, who leads the independent group developing England’s National Food Strategy, said: “Covid-19, painful though it is, could pale into insignificance compared to the turbulence created by climate change and the collapse in biodiversity. Healthcare professionals have an important role in shaping our diets, and I am very pleased to see their recommendations cover not only our health, but that of our planet too.”

Some action is already happening in the UK to cut the environmental impact of food. In April, public sector caterers serving billions of meals a year pledged to reduce the amount of meat they serve by 20%, cutting 9m kg of meat a year.

In October, the NHS set a target of cutting its net carbon emissions to zero by 2040 and included food in its action plan: “Healthier, locally sourced food can improve wellbeing while cutting emissions.”

Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, said UKHACC’s recommendation of environmental labelling on food was important. “Today you can walk into a shop and buy something with an environmental impact many times higher than another food, and have no idea you have done so.” For example, Brazilian beef uses 200 times more land and causes 80 times more emissions than European tofu, he said.

Prof Andrew Goddard, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “I am the first to admit that I enjoy a steak every now and then, but it’s clear that if we are to avoid dangerous global warming we must start to reconsider our attitudes to food. We each have a responsibility and an ability to make a difference as individuals.”

The Green Digest: United States presidential election; and other Global Issues

Source: usatoday.com

UNITED STATES: As the world awaits the next United States president, there are lots of implications not only to the American people but to the world at large. The United States is at a crossroad in determining who will lead the country amidst global challenges, and still maintain diplomatic relationships with countries and multilateral organizations. The “decade of action geared towards sustainable development is rapidly closing in as 2020 comes to an end. However, as Americans go to the polls today and elect their new president, the fate of the Sustainable Development Goals and multilateral cooperation hangs in the balance.

AFRICA:

The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) has condemned the killing of coal mine activist Fikile Ntshangase. She has been vocal against one of South Africa’s largest open coal mines in Kwa-Zulu Natal coastal province before her death. She was gunned down on October 22 in her home with her 11-year-old grandson. Ntshangase was vice-chairperson of a sub-committee of the Mfolozi Community Environmental Justice Organization which had consistently challenged the expansion of the mine. Human rights activists and other joint groups are persuading the government to investigate her killing and tighten legislation against unsustainable mining activities.

BIODIVERSITY:

Banks of the world have been accused by portfolio.earth of sponsoring biodiversity loss. According to the analysis, in 2020 alone banks have financed over $2.6 trillion in loans and other credit facilities that drives biodiversity destruction. Examples of such banks include; Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, HSBC, and Barclays. These banks went ahead to finance sectors previously identified by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Platform Services (IPBES) as primary drivers of the global extinction crises.

RENEWABLE ENERGY: Renewable energy predictions for 2021 are hinged towards tech giants like Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The reason behind this is that majority of renewable energy procurements were financed by these corporations. Also, mid-sized companies like Salesforce, which is the largest purchaser of electricity, have thrown in their weight to influence the dynamics of the industry. Probable milestones that these corporations would strive to reach include; social justice, 100% renewable at all times, reduction of scope 3 emissions, storage, and the need for speed.

2020: The year 2020 has been eventful in the history of humanity. What lessons can be learned from this year as it draws to a close? Two major humanity crises faced in the course of the year are the COVID-19 pandemic and raging forest fires across the world. We would agree that the causative agent of both occurrences is our interaction with biodiversity. Therefore the need to tackle climate change and unsustainable use of natural resources is paramount.

The Green Digest: Migration; Looming threat to humpback whales; Sustainable cities; South Africa’s xenophobic attacks.

AFRICA: The impacts of climate change, migration and urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa have led to predictable patterns according to a meta-analysis on environmental migration carried out by Roman Hoffman, Post Doctoral Researcher, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The reasons behind migration and the relationship between these decisions and climatic conditions depend on the economic and sociopolitical conditions in the respective regions of origin. Contrary to what European studies reveal about migrants, migration into Europe and the United States are primarily on an internal level and rarely over long distances. In Sub-Saharan Africa, analyses have shown that changing climatic conditions and ecological hazards are the major drivers of migration, which is usually towards urban centers.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The humpback whales are gradually adapting to warmer waters, however, the question remains: how much can they bear? The 10,000 years annual routine of whales coming and going in season is threatened by warmer oceans. The beginning of November marks the end of the whale season in the Southern Hemisphere which would see them swim further south to feed around the Antarctica. Research has shown that the decline in krill stocks, (the primary food source for whales) and a changing climate will threaten the existence and biological rhythm of whales.

SUSTAINABLE CITIES: Global development goals hinge on sustainable cities. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted cities regardless of their developmental level. According to the United Nations Habitat, 95% of total cases were recorded in urban centers, while more than 1 billion people living in urban slums and informal settlements have a heightened risk of infection due to lack of safe drinking water and health services. More so, poorer and vulnerable cities have also suffered disproportionately from the pandemic. As the United Nations celebrated the World Cities Day on 31 October, the 2020 theme heralded was valuing our communities and cities. Cities are therefore at the core of global sustainability crises.

XENOPHOBIA: South-Africa has been known for xenophobic attacks against migrants. Harassment and discrimination have been directed towards foreigners by those with anti-migrant sentiments. The launching of the National Action Plan in March 2019 by the government was to combat racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance as witnessed in the past decade alone. However, lack of quality data would sabotage government efforts in changing people’s attitudes towards foreigners. Also, statistics have shown that these sentiments against migrants were driven primarily by information, and attitudinal change can only occur with the right information from the media.

Climate change: US formally withdraws from Paris agreement

Matt McGrath

After a three-year delay, the US has become the first nation in the world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.

President Trump announced the move in June 2017, but UN regulations meant that his decision only takes effect today, the day after the US election.

The US could re-join it in future, should a president choose to do so.

The Paris deal was drafted in 2015 to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change.

It aims to keep the global temperature rise this century well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5C.

Why has this taken so long?

The delay is down to the complex rules that were built into the Paris agreement to cope with the possibility that a future US president might decide to withdraw the country from the deal.

Previous attempts to put together a global pact on climate change had foundered because of internal US politics.

The Clinton administration was unable to secure Senate backing for the Kyoto Protocol, agreed in 1997.

So in the run up to the Paris climate talks, President Obama's negotiators wanted to ensure that it would take time for the US to get out if there was a change in leadership.

Even though the agreement was signed in December 2015, the treaty only came into force on 4 November 2016, 30 days after at least 55 countries representing 55% of global emissions had ratified it.

No country could give notice to leave the agreement until three years had passed from the date of ratification.

Even then, a member state still had to serve a 12-month notice period on the UN.

So, despite President Trump's White House announcement in June 2017, the US was only able to formally give notice to the UN in November last year. The time has elapsed and the US is now out.

What will the withdrawal mean in practice?

While the US now represents around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it remains the world's biggest and most powerful economy.

So when it becomes the only country to withdraw from a global solution to a global problem it raises questions of trust.

For the past three years, US negotiators have attended UN climate talks while the administration has tried to use these events to promote fossil fuels.

"Being out formally obviously hurts the US reputation," said Andrew Light, a former senior climate change official in the Obama administration.

"This will be the second time that the United States has been the primary force behind negotiating a new climate deal - with the Kyoto Protocol we never ratified it, in the case of the Paris Agreement, we left it."

"So, I think it's obviously a problem."

How is the US pull out being viewed?

Although this has been a long time coming, there is still a palpable sense of disappointment for many Americans who believe that climate change is the biggest global challenge and the US should be leading the fight against it.

"The decision to leave the Paris agreement was wrong when it was announced and it is still wrong today," said Helen Mountford from the World Resources Institute.

"Simply put the US should stay with the other 189 parties to the agreement, not go out alone."

The formal withdrawal has also re-opened old wounds for climate diplomats.
"It's definitely a big blow to the Paris agreement," said Carlos Fuller, from Belize, the lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States in the UN talks.

"We actually worked very hard to ensure that every country in the world could accede to this new agreement. And so, by losing one, we feel that basically we have failed."

Others say that the US pull-out is partly due to the failure of the Obama administration to have the Paris agreement ratified by the US Senate.

"What Obama did at the end of his second term was fundamentally undemocratic, to sign up to a Paris agreement without going to the Senate and the Congress and instead doing it via executive order," said former UN climate chief, Yvo De Boer.

"And then, in a way, you're setting yourself up for what has happened now."

Could the US re-join the agreement?

Yes, it could.

In fact, while on the campaign trail, Joe Biden said he would seek to re-join as soon as possible - if he was elected President.

Under the rules, all that is required is a month's notice and the US should be back in the fold.

However, even if the US chose to re-enter the agreement, there would be consequences for being out - even for a few months.

"We know that the UK and the EU and the UN Secretary General are planning an event on 12 December, on the fifth anniversary of the conclusion of negotiations for the Paris agreement, where they're going to try to drive more ambition," said Andrew Light.

"Under the Paris rules, the US will not be able to participate in that."

Not everyone in the US is upset to leave the Paris agreement?

President Trump made leaving Paris a key part of his election platform in 2016, tying it into his vision of a revitalised US with booming energy production, especially coal and oil.

His perspective on the Paris agreement was that it was unfair to the US, leaving countries like India and China free to use fossil fuels while the US had to curb their carbon.

"I'm not sure what Paris actually accomplishes," said Katie Tubb, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think tank.

"In terms of getting to the end of the century, if the goal is to reduce global temperatures, it just can't be done on the backs of the industrialised world."

"No matter what you think about global warming, and the nature of it, the pace of it, you have to take these growing economies seriously, and help them and I just didn't see Paris getting to that end, in any efficient or constructive manner."

How have US opponents of the pull-out reacted over the past three years?

In the wake of the President's announcement back in 2017, a number of states and businesses have pledged to continue cutting carbon and to try and make up for the Federal government's decision to walk away from the US commitment under Paris.

Among them are America's Pledge, put together by former California governor Jerry Brown and the former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg.

They say that states and cities will help cut US emissions by 19% compared to 2025 from what they were in 2005 - that's not enough to make up for the US promise under Paris but it keeps those targets "within reach".

"The public understands that fighting climate change goes hand in hand with protecting our health and growing our economy," said Michael Bloomberg in a statement.

"So despite the White House's best efforts to drag our country backward, it hasn't stopped our climate progress over the past four years."

On the business front, there has been growing pressure from shareholders of large fossil fuel-based industries to face up to the climate challenge.

A proposal filed by BNP Paribas Asset Management won a 53% majority vote at Chevron - it called on the oil giant to ensure that its climate lobbying was in line with the goals of the Paris agreement.

Will other countries now leave the agreement?

"I don't think anyone will follow Mr Trump out of Paris," said Peter Betts, a former lead negotiator for the UK and the EU in the global climate negotiations, and now an associate fellow at Chatham House.

"Nobody has in the last four years and I don't think they will in the future."

Some are worried that the US withdrawal will see other countries adopt a go-slow attitude, at a time when scientists are saying that efforts should be speeded up.

A number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia have already shown a willingness to side with US efforts to push back on the science around global warming.

"They are biding their time, they are saying that if the US is not in then we don't need to rush to do anything at this time'," said Carlos Fuller, lead negotiator from the Alliance of Small Island States.

"I think they are hedging their bets to see what kind of a better deal they can get out of it, and not actually withdraw."

Others are hopeful that the US withdrawal will drive a sense of unity among others, and see new leadership emerge.

"The EU green deal and carbon neutrality commitments from China, Japan and South Korea point to the inevitability of our collective transition off fossil fuels," said Laurence Tubiana, one of the architects of the Paris agreement and now chief executive of the European Climate Foundation.

"There were always going to be speed bumps as the global economy shifted off oil, gas and coal - but the overall direction of travel is clear. As governments prepare stimulus packages to rescue their economies from covid-19 it's vital they invest in technologies of the future, not the past."

Transparent solar cells' can take us towards a new era of personalized energy

Incheon National University

Today, the imminent climate change crisis demands a shift from conventionally used fossil fuels to efficient sources of green energy. This has led to researchers looking into the concept of "personalized energy," which would make on-site energy generation possible. For example, solar cells could possibly be integrated into windows, vehicles, cellphone screens, and other everyday products. But for this, it is important for the solar panels to be handy and transparent. To this end, scientists have recently developed "transparent photovoltaic" (TPV) devices -- transparent versions of the traditional solar cell. Unlike the conventionally dark, opaque solar cells (which absorb visible light), TPVs make use of the "invisible" light that falls in the ultraviolet (UV) range.

Source: Bloomberg.com

Conventional solar cells can be either "wet type" (solution based) or "dry type" (made up of metal-oxide semiconductors). Of these, dry-type solar cells have a slight edge over the wet-type ones: they are more reliable, eco-friendly, and cost-effective. Moreover, metal-oxides are well-suited to make use of the UV light. Despite all this, however, the potential of metal-oxide TPVs has not been fully explored until now.

To this end, researchers from Incheon National University, Republic of Korea, came up with an innovative design for a metal-oxide-based TPV device. They inserted an ultra-thin layer of silicon (Si) between two transparent metal-oxide semiconductors with the goal of developing an efficient TPV device. These findings were published in a study in Nano Energy, which was made available online on August 10, 2020 (ahead of the scheduled final publication in the December 2020 issue). Prof Joondong Kim, who led the study, explains, "Our aim was to devise a high-power-producing transparent solar cell, by embedding an ultra-thin film of amorphous Si between zinc oxide and nickel oxide."

@Peter Gonzalez

This novel design consisting of the Si film had three major advantages. First, it allowed for the utilization of longer-wavelength light (as opposed to bare TPVs). Second, it resulted in efficient photon collection. Third, it allowed for the faster transport of charged particles to the electrodes. Moreover, the design can potentially generate electricity even under low-light situations (for instance, on cloudy or rainy days). The scientists further confirmed the power-generating ability of the device by using it to operate the DC motor of a fan.

Based on these findings, the research team is optimistic that the real-life applicability of this new TPV design will soon be possible. As for potential applications, there are plenty, as Prof Kim explains, "We hope to extend the use of our TPV design to all kinds of material, right from glass buildings to mobile devices like electric cars, smartphones, and sensors." Not just this, the team is excited to take their design to the next level, by using innovative materials such as 2D semiconductors, nanocrystals of metal-oxides, and sulfide semiconductors. As Prof Kim concludes, "Our research is essential for a sustainable green future -- especially to connect the clean energy system with no or minimal carbon footprint."

The Green Digest: Egypt’s, China, and Dubai for sustainable development, What is the way forward America?

Egypt

AFRICA: For the first time ever, Egypt has participated in the European Sustainable Development Goal Summit 2020. The summit which centered on reimagining global supply chains in context of the SDGs brought together a host of more than 5 000 sustainability leaders including business representatives, NGOs, industry federations and national partner organizations. In attendance was Egypt’s Minister of International Cooperation, Rania Al Mashat who highlighted the significant role of global supply chains in achieving the SDGs. She also emphasized the joint responsibility of public and private sectors in ensuring sustainable supply chains. She encouraged government and policy makers to embrace “shareholder capitalism” as it provides opportunity for a circular economy to be centered on social aspirations.

ASIA: China has been on an explosive growth paradigm in spite of impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the wake of rising unilateralism and protectionism, and as the world’s second largest economy; China is willing to share its development opportunities through the upcoming China International Import Expo (CIIE). Keeping with its tradition of rolling out a five-year plan on a continuous basis, China is recording its 14th five-year plan that announces its latest development blueprint. The country is set to achieve ten years ahead of schedule the poverty alleviation of the 2030 Agenda, proven in the 55.75 million rural residents lifted from poverty this year.

Electricity generation

MIDDLE EAST: Dubai is taking a center stage in sustainable development by turning trash to energy. The announcement made by the vice president, prime minister and ruler of Dubai, his Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to build Dh4 billion waste management plant has placed the gulf country in a league with nations like Sweden. A new waste processing plant in Warsan area is projected to handle 1,000 garbage trucks a day and power 135,000 homes by 2024. The plant will process 1.9 million tonnes of municipal solid waste and generate 200 megawatts of electricity annually.

UNITED STATES: What is the fate of the Sustainable Development Goals if Donald Trump wins a second tenure? There is no need emphasizing the bipolar nature between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. During their just concluded debates, we got a fair glimpse on each candidate’s commitment to combating climate change and strengthening multilateral cooperation. While Donald Trump is a fierce advocate for economic superiority at all cost, Joe Biden is a firm believer on the “Green New Deal” as a socioeconomic strategic response against COVID-19 pandemic. However, come November 3 2020, the American voter will have the luxury of deciding which candidate and his agenda would emerge victorious.

THE GREEN ROOM (Episode 6): Marc Buckley on THE FUTURE OF FOOD: Sustainable Food System

GREEN ROOM: LIVE WEBINAR

Marc Buckley, Founder of ALOHAS Resilience Foundation, speaks on Building a Resilient, Sustainable, and Innovative Food Systems in a World of Climate Uncerta...

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Summary of the Discussion

“We must stop and reverse our direction when it comes to human health and climate action and impact on our environment. We have to stop and reverse our direction.” Those were the clarion call of Marc Buckley Founder of ALOHAS Resilient Foundation. a UN advisor in resilient futurist, also a Founder of the organization ‘For Everyone Earth’. Marc highlighted the need to ask ourselves the ‘WTF’ question; “What’s the future”…

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LISTEN TO PODCAST

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Marc Buckley is the Founder ALOHAS Resilience Foundation. He an Advocate for the SDG’s, UN Advisor and Resilient Futurist, Social Innovation, Climate Change, Agriculture, Food, and Beverage Expert.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Dr. Jason J. McSparren is an educator, researcher, and administrator with a PhD. in Global Governance and Human Security from Massachusetts Boston.He is also a Pre-Doctoral Fellow (2017-18) for the West African Research Association (WARA).

VIDEO FROM SESSION

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Jason: Right? Thank you very much. Marc Buckley. That was a really interesting talk and so interesting that I'm actually going to forego getting the conversation started and we going to go right to the audience because there is quite a few people who are knocking on our door and like to ask you a few questions, so I'll ask my questions later on. Can we please begin with some questions, please from our audience? Here we have had Tim. Hi Tim. Would you like to address Mr. Marc Buckley, please?

Tim: Thank you so much, Mr. Marc Buckley for the interesting, informative session. Although l came late, but I had this question in my mind. I want to ask you about how we can strike a balance between food production and biodiversity. 

Marc:  It's really important that we start using regenerative practices in our food production so that we get away from monoculture, we get away from pesticides and harmful fertilizers and chemicals and our products to get that biodiversity back and what I mean by biodiversity is not only in the types of food we grow but in the soil health that it's very biodiverse, that's rich with not only those pollinators around it, but also the worms and microbes in the soil. I want you to know that in farming practices, it doesn't matter what you grow. Those soils have nutrients, minerals, and vitamins that go into the plant, into the product that we're growing and that has been reduced decade after decade has gotten worse because of the way we're treating the soils but also because we're doing a lot of monocultures and that's coming back that we're getting products and food that doesn't have the nutrition in the vitamins and at that is should. The way we can change that is through biodiverse permaculture regenerative, agriculture regenerative ranching regenerative, agroecology, agroforestry. And the way we do that and the other thing is the cycle of farming has been broken. So when I mentioned in my presentation is that farms were the start of communities and cities because we built those cities in those communities around the farm. But today the cities don't have any farms and many more of this farms are way outside and we're shipping the food into the cities and that's broken that nutrient cycle of our soils because the nutrients that go from the soils into the food then we ship it to the cities. And so I say cities are a place that food goes to die because before when we consume the food close to the Farms we can put that waste in the composting in those peelings and those things that are good for the soil health that the microbes and the bugs and the worms in it that go back into the soil which goes back into the food we can put that back. We're not doing that anymore. There's no cities taken for being there, there are some around the world but not at the scale we need that are taking those nutrients of the waste, of that food that we eat, the peelings, whatever, and getting that back to our soils. And so that's why we use chemicals and fertilizer, pesticides and all those things.

Jason: I think our next question is going to be fielded from Buckky Fabunmi. Oh, I'm sorry Miss Buckky Fabunmi. Hello.

Buckky Fabunmi: Hello.

Jason: Good evening.

Buckky Fabunmi: Good evening. Good evening, Jason. Good evening Marc. Thanks for the presentation. Thank you so much. I think I have a question and then a contribution to make. Like for the waste that are generated. For example, you know, they're just disposed into the environment indiscriminately which runs into the waterways into the water bodies causing eutrophication and all that and at times causing flood and disease outbreak. So those who waste can be converted into useful products? Like I've been working on conversion of agricultural waste into useful products such as enzymes, poultry feeds and biogas. So If those are examples of products that you can convert this risk into and in by so doing try to clean our environment now, we already know that the environment is messed up already. So our burning, our burying of these wastes has caused us a lot. And so these are products that can be generated from these things. And again these things cannot be done by just one person there has to be a collaboration between researchers in order to be able to achieve these and by so doing cleaning our environment and being able to achieve one or two of the sustainable development our goals and my question now to you Buckley is that now we know that genetically modified foods kind of helped us to improve food production. Right, but then these genetically modified foods also have their own side effects. So as a food researcher, will you vote for the production of genetically modified food or you vote against it. Telling us the advantage and disadvantage, telling us your viewpoint.

Marc:  I wish I really wish it was that easy because, I personally don't like genetically modified foods that are on a strict lab base, but I want you to know that we farming is a science. It's not natural. It's never been a natural process. So the minute we began 12,000 years ago or 10,000 or began farming. What we did is we started cutting down trees, moving rocks and tilling the soil which began putting emissions into our atmosphere and having effect on our soils and our planet and those apples from ten thousand or five thousand or two hundred years ago or not the apples that we eat today, but they're not that way because of genetic modification and in the true sense of what we think about it in a laboratory setting this genetic modification that has evolved naturally over time through grafting, spicing, mixing different types of apples together. If you look at the original banana or some of the original banana species, they're very small. They had big huge black seeds in them. They didn't taste very sweet. If you know, they were different and there is there's hundreds of different species of bananas. But the ones that we in the grocery store today or the ones that we use to cook, cook with plantains or whatever they are. They're much different than that original but that they weren't done in a lab. They weren't done by some mad scientist doing it in the laboratory. They were just done in a different type of evolution of crossbreeding, splicing grafting different trees and different things and using the seeds in a different way that have evolved that way. Now, there's genetic modification that is done in a lab by a Barbaric, Monsanto other chemical companies that you certain prize. I think those are definitely very harmful for our world and so we need to make that distinction. A lot of people think that agriculture is a natural process. I come like Jason mention I come from six generations of Germany's largest organic farmers. And in my opinion, I think organic farming is great. It's what we should have worldwide. But I also think that European Union or standard for organic farming has set the bar about as low as they can possibly set it. It's the minimum and I think the bar needs to be raised globally not only on organics but on agriculture in general, how that we look at it as a closed system with circular economy principles, regenerative practices, for the much longer game in so in that respect organics are never genetically modified their never in those respect when you look at the laboratory way. But we have to make that clear. I think genetically modified foods and some respect our seeds are good or one are one tool for the toolbox to help us, but they're not the answer. They're not the long-term solution to get to regenerative or to a healthy planet. So  I don't know if that answered I could probably talk a little bit more and explain like for example, if you were to fly over Spain over I think it's called Alamia this one of the biggest organic farm areas in Spain if you were to fly over there in a helicopter or a plane or drone. If you hadn't been there before people would say oh my goodness. What are all these refugees doing up in Spain? Well, how did they get here how and local would say those aren't refugee camps. That's the European Union standard for organic farming. That is the worst and poorest conditions. Not fair wages Not Fair Labor not fair housing not sanitary conditions, and they're producing food as cheaply and as quickly as possible and abhorrent conditions matter of fact, if you look at the United Nations refugee camp or World Food Program Camp. They have a much better standards than the organic farms in Spain because it's there's no clean water, there's no sanitation, those people who are working are those a working in a poor conditions and in my opinion that's criminal because like I said if you cheap and food you cheap a life. If we produce it cheaper, we producer with chemicals in the long run, it comes back to really hurt us. It's a bad model because like I said, the FAO said we have 45 matters left in food and the reason why is because of the soils aren't getting time to regenerate and recover and there's no nutrients and minerals in there. And so when we do no-till practices and regenerative practices, we can heal that soil and get a backup so that we can produce the types of crops. And things that we want the other thing is a seat banking. So if you don't want genetically modified crops, I want you I want to encourage you to start your own seed bank to gather organic seeds as much as possible and we keep them alive because we're losing species all over the world of plants and fruits and vegetables all the time because they're just being died out. Nobody's taking care of it.

Jason: Would you like to talk about how your work connects to this topic? 

Buckky Fabunmi: Yes, please. Thank you very much. My work connects to this topic in the part of the waste generation from food production. So I've been working on kola nut husk is a waste Nigeria is known for the production of kola nuts. And so like 7% of Kola nut is being produced in Nigeria. So we generate a lot of this waste and this waste is known to be very nutritious when his post on the farm site, you know the nutrient in it attract microorganisms and also the nutrients when it's been washed into the water. It causes Eutrophication and blocking the water reducing the lives of microorganisms and other creatures in the water bodies. So I looked at how this waste, agriculture waste can be converted into useful products. And so I worked on converting it into using it as a substrate for enzyme production. So I used it and then I used it to produce biogas used it. In different ratio with cattle porch waste. I also used it in composition with Maize and other products other components to make poultry feed. For the poultry feed at a ratio of 30% it was too high, it does not enhance the growth of the poultry birds but then at 10% with maize and other component required for poultry feed it enhance their growth. Another thing is that, it is advantageous in having it in poultry feed because, it has fiber and so it reduces the quantity of feed the birds eat. And so it reduces your cost so you gain more by so doing. So although I recommend that 10% is the maximum that can be used in poultry feed but I think in lesser quantity will be more beneficial in having a good quality meat poultry meats. And then for the biogas also it was able to produce methane over about 50 percent, but then it wasn't combustible and that was because I did not have the necessary gadget or equipment to carry out the other analysis that I needed to do. So I had to stop at a level. But then from the experiment it's good because it was concluded that the kola nut husk when blended or mixed in a ratio of 1 to 3 or 3 to 1 with cattle porch waste, it can generate biogas that can be used. And then for the enzyme production also, I worked on five different enzymes xylanase, protease, pectinase, amylase, cellulase. So those five enzymes, I used this waste, the kola nut husk, the grinded one, I used it as substrate and then checked their productivity Okay, what the microorganisms that grow on it whether it will to produce this enzymes of interest and they were able to produce xylanase and pectinase at least sufficient. But then further work is still required, you know, I was able to just do the work to the level where I had the funding up to and so I stopped it but some  other people are carrying on the work.

Jason: That's beautiful.

Buckky Fabunmi: At least. Yeah. So for now at least that's the way I am, you know contributing to my environment by trying to gather the waste from the environment clean the environment of some of these waste, at least agricultural waste, definitely you can clean up all the waste. Then, another project I want to embark on now is, conversion of plastic waste into useful products such as interlocking tiles, roof tiles and so and those ones are, alternative measures or means by which this waste can be converted to useful product and then clean environment.

Marc: That is amazing because, I really like what you said because, It's really hard to talk about agriculture on a blanket global generalized way and what you're doing and what you just mentioned and you're talking about indigenous microorganisms for your place where you're at, that are local and that's so important because we need to heal that microbiome of our soil but we need those Imo's (those indigenous microorganisms) that are indigenous to your area, that will work best for their like micro rise is a big thing in agriculture and in growth and the mycelium and the growth of our soils as well as well as Plants, but they're indigenous to each and every different plant species and area of the world. And so that's what I heard out of what you just said. You're going local, you're going very indigenous of what works there and what has been proven and how can you use those tools the most successful innovations that I've ever seen around the world and that I present to the World Economic Forum are always from people who come up with where they're at, what they're dealing with and how they've solved the problem locally as a crew member on spaceship earth. And so I thank you for doing that. That's fabulous

Jason: And fantastic. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you Dr. Fabunmi. Excuse me. I apologize great to meet you and I think we have another question coming in. Did we lose our guest here we are. Yes. Hello. How are you doing today?

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Favourite Quote

“Food is a global citizen, It does not recognize borders, nations and walls.”

— Marc Buckley

““We must stop and reverse our direction when it comes to human health, climate and our environment””

— Marc Buckley

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Top Comments

I want to truly appreciate and commend your presentation. It was it seemed as if I had semester hack under 30 minutes you a very succinct and straight to the point.- Chibuike

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New drone technology improves ability to forecast volcanic eruptions

University College London

Specially-adapted drones developed by a UCL-led international team have been gathering data from never-before-explored volcanoes that will enable local communities to better forecast future eruptions.

The cutting-edge research at Manam volcano in Papua New Guinea is improving scientists' understanding of how volcanoes contribute to the global carbon cycle, key to sustaining life on Earth.

The team's findings, published in Science Advances, show for the first time how it is possible to combine measurements from the air, earth and space to learn more about the most inaccessible, highly active volcanoes on the planet.

The ABOVE project involved specialists from the UK, USA, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Costa Rica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, spanning volcanology and aerospace engineering.

They co-created solutions to the challenges of measuring gas emissions from active volcanoes, through using modified long-range drones.

By combining in situ aerial measurements with results from satellites and ground-based remote sensors, researchers can gather a much richer data set than previously possible. This enables them to monitor active volcanoes remotely, improving understanding of how much carbon dioxide (CO2) is being released by volcanoes globally and, importantly, where this carbon is coming from.

With a diameter of 10km, Manam volcano is located on an island 13km off the northeast coast of the mainland, at 1,800m above sea level.

Previous studies have shown it is among the world's biggest emitters of sulphur dioxide, but nothing was known of its CO2 output.

Volcanic CO2 emissions are challenging to measure due to high concentrations in the background atmosphere. Measurements need to be collected very close to active vents and, at hazardous volcanoes like Manam, drones are the only way to obtain samples safely. Yet beyond-line-of-sight drone flights have rarely been attempted in volcanic environments.

Adding miniaturised gas sensors, spectrometers and sampling devices that are automatically triggered to open and close, the team was able to fly the drone 2km high and 6km away to reach Manam's summit, where they captured gas samples to be analysed within hours.

Calculating the ratio between sulphur and carbon dioxide levels in a volcano's emissions is critical to determining how likely an eruption is to take place, as it helps volcanologists establish the location of its magma.

Manam's last major eruptions between 2004 and 2006 devastated large parts of the island and displaced the population of some 4,000 people to the mainland; their crops destroyed and water supplies contaminated.

Project lead Dr Emma Liu (UCL Earth Sciences) said: "Manam hasn't been studied in detail but we could see from satellite data that it was producing strong emissions. The resources of the in-country volcano monitoring institute are small and the team has an incredible workload, but they really helped us make the links with the community living on Manam island."

Following the fieldwork, the researchers raised funds to buy computers, solar panels and other technology to enable the local community -- who have since put together a disaster preparedness group -- to communicate via satellite from the island, and to provide drone operations training to Rabaul Volcanological Observatory staff to assist in their monitoring efforts.

ABOVE was part of the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO), a global community of scientists on a ten-year quest to understand more about carbon in Earth.

Volcanic emissions are a critical stage of the Earth's carbon cycle -- the movement of carbon between land, atmosphere, and ocean -- but CO2 measurements have so far been limited to a relatively small number of the world's estimated 500 degassing volcanoes.

Understanding the factors that control volcanic carbon emissions in the present day will reveal how the climate has changed in the past and therefore how it may respond in the future to current human impacts.

Co-author Professor Alessandro Aiuppa (University of Palermo) described the findings as 'a real advance in our field', adding: "Ten years ago you could have only stared and guessed what Manam's CO2 emissions were.

"If you take into account all the carbon released by global volcanism, it's less than a per cent of the total emission budget, which is dominated by human activity. In a few centuries, humans are acting like thousands of volcanoes. If we continue to pump carbon into the atmosphere, it will make monitoring and forecasting eruptions using aerial gas observations even harder."

Co-author Professor Tobias Fischer (University of New Mexico), added: "In order to understand the drivers of climate change you need to understand the carbon cycle in the earth.

"We wanted to quantify the carbon emission from this very large carbon dioxide emitter. We had very few data in terms of carbon isotope composition, which would identify the source of the carbon and whether it is the mantle, crust or sediment. We wanted to know where that carbon comes from."

US and UK citizens are world’s biggest sources of plastic waste – study

US population may also be the third-largest producer of marine plastic pollution

India and Indonesia ranked highest when the researchers estimated how much of each country’s plastic waste ends up in the oceans. Photograph: Paulo Oliveira/Alamy

The US and UK produce more plastic waste per person than any other major countries, according to new research.

The analysis also shows the US produces the most plastic waste in total and that its citizens may rank as high as third in the world in contributing to plastic pollution in the oceans. Previous work had suggested Asian countries dominated marine plastic pollution and placed the US in 20th place, but this did not account for US waste exports or illegal dumping within the country.

Data from 2016, the latest available, show that more than half of the plastic collected for recycling in the US was shipped abroad, mostly to countries already struggling to manage plastic waste effectively. The researchers said years of exporting had masked the US’s enormous contribution to plastic pollution.

“The US is 4% of the world’s population, yet its produces 17% of its plastic waste,” said Nick Mallos at the Ocean Conservancy and one of the study authors. “The US needs to play a much bigger role in addressing the global plastic pollution crisis.”

The size of the US contribution is likely to be the results of high income and consumption levels. “I assume we’re just the best consumers,” said Kara Lavender Law at the Sea Education Association and part of the research team.

“A country’s contribution to plastic pollution does not stop at its border,” said Winnie Lau at the Pew Trusts, who was not involved in the analysis. “The export of plastic waste from the US, for example, can contribute substantially to the global ocean plastic problem, and this important research puts a number on just how much pollution that is.” She said this kind of analysis helped countries to take full responsibility for their plastic waste.

Plastic waste has polluted the whole planet, from the deepest oceans to Arctic snow and Alpine soils, and is known to harm wildlife. Concern is also growing about the quantity of microplastics people consume with food and water, and by breathing them in.

A study led by Lau in September found that even if all currently feasible measures were used to cut plastic pollution it would fall by only 40%, putting 700m tonnes into the environment by 2040. “To avoid a massive buildup of plastic in the environment, coordinated global action is urgently needed to reduce plastic consumption, increase reuse, waste collection and recycling,” the study concluded.

China banned the import of plastic waste in 2018, and Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, India and Indonesia have followed with their own restrictions. The fate of the plastic no longer going to these countries is not yet fully known, but a Guardian investigation in 2019 found US plastic was being sent to some of the world’s poorest countries, including Bangladesh, Laos, Ethiopia and Senegal, where labour is cheap and environmental regulation limited.

The researchers found the US produced the most plastic waste by World Bank reckoning, at 34m tonnes in 2016, but the total increased to 42m tonnes when the additional data was considered. India and China were second and third, but their large populations meant their figures for per capita plastic waste was less than 20% of that of US consumers.

Among the 20 nations with the highest total plastic waste production, the UK was second to the US per capita, followed by South Korea and Germany.

When the researchers estimated how much of each country’s plastic waste ends up in the oceans, Indonesia and India ranked highest. The US ranked between third and eleventh, depending on the assumptions made about waste leakage into the environment. The analysis found that up to 1m tonnes of exported US plastic waste ended up as marine pollution.

“The solution has to start at home,” said Mallos. “We need to create less by cutting out unnecessary single-use plastics, and we need to develop new ways to package and deliver goods. Where plastics are inevitable, we need to drastically improve our recycling rates.” Only 9% of US plastic waste was recycled in 2016. “It is incredibly low,” Mallos said.

Lavender Law said the Covid-19 pandemic was also increasing plastic waste, particularly discarded PPE, but that data on the scale of the issue was not yet available.

The latest study, published in the journal Science Advances, used World Bank data on waste generation in 217 countries. It focused on the US and used additional data on littering and illegal dumping within the country and on contamination by exported plastic, which is likely to be dumped rather than recycled.