Finland sets world’s most ambitious local climate goal in legislation


Finland’s objective to go internet zero by 2035 and then carbon damaging was primarily based on equity as very well as science, but it will not be uncomplicated to reverse forest decline

Finland has passed arguably the world’s most bold local climate focus on into legislation. It aims to be the initial formulated state to reach internet zero, in 2035, and net destructive – absorbing more CO2 than it emits – by 2040.

In accordance to Net Zero Tracker, only South Sudan has a a lot more bold web zero date than 2035 and, as a developing place, its 2030 goal is remarkably dependent on international finance.

The focus on was set centered on investigation by a team of independent economists from the Finnish local weather transform panel. They labored out what Finland’s reasonable share was of the 420 GT of carbon dioxide that the planet can emit and however have a two-thirds prospect of limiting world wide warming to 1.5C.

The panel primarily based this reasonable share on Finland’s share of the world-wide populace, its skill to pay to minimize emissions and its historic responsiblity for creating local weather alter. It is considered to be the first goal to have been set in this way.

Finland’s surroundings minister Emma Kari informed Local climate Dwelling it was “very important” that the target was established with researchers and individuals from the local climate science neighborhood. She additional: “High cash flow nations around the world have to acquire a progressive and lively role when it comes to tackling local weather change.”

Island states back again Vanuatu’s quest for local weather justice at the UN

Most produced nations around the world including European Union (EU) and the Usa have established 2050 internet zero targets. The Finnish evaluation discovered that Germany and the EU must attain web zero in the early to mid-2030s.

Asked if the EU should set an previously target date, Kari said targets “should be dependent on weather science, on the Paris agreement… if the focus on is not suitable with the Paris Agreement… then we have to convert it up”.

Kari described Finland’s target as “ambitious but achievable” and explained that it has wide cross-social gathering assist in Finland. Kari is a Environmentally friendly Get together minister in a coalition of five centre-to-leftwing get-togethers.

Whether Finland fulfills its climate targets will mostly rely on its forests, which deal with three-quarters of its land region. Final week, Data Finland produced figures which confirmed that these forests had, for the first time, unveiled much more greenhouse gases than they absorbed.

Finland’s emissions with no land use, land use transform and forestry (blue), with it (orange) and emissions just from it (purple). (Picture: Statistics Finland)

Emissions from deforestation have been rising in excess of the past decade, cancelling out emissions reductions from electricity as the nation moves away from fossil fuels. This was thanks to trees becoming reduce down more rapidly and planted slower, Stats Finland uncovered.

Finnish logging organizations convert its trees into pulp and paper and sell them to be burned for power, which is usually controversially advertised as climate-helpful and renewable.

World wide Forest View data exhibits tree include loss (pink) and tree include attain (blue) going on aspect-by-facet across most of Finland. (Photo: World Forest Enjoy)

Kari told Local weather Residence the ministry of agriculture and forestry was functioning on its initially at any time weather program.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sped up Finland’s vitality transition, Kari added, as the government pushed forward with wind energy and building properties extra electricity productive and much less reliant on fossil gas heating.

The target will be satisfied with no relying on global carbon offsets, Kari claimed, exactly where just one place pays an additional to lower emissions on its behalf.

Joe Lo



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Good News on This Day in History


96 years ago today, Kruger National Park is established in Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa. One of the largest game reserves on the continent, it is more than twice the size of Yellowstone, at 7,576 square miles (19,623 square kilometers). Part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, it crosses over the border with Mozambique and Zimbabwe, forming a protected area bigger than Belgium. READ more… (1926)

Elephants at Kruger National Park. 

With 147 species of large game animal, Kruger has more biodiversity than any other African game reserve, and at certain times it’s had so many elephants that they’ve needed to be translocated to other reserves and parks because the park—bigger than Belgium, can’t carry their weight. It also has the largest populations in southern Africa of wild hunting dogs, and white rhino.

MORE Good News on this Day in History:

  • The U.S. enacted its first copyright statute to protect the works of creative authors in the literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual fields, so they may reap the fruits of their intellectual creations for a period of time (1790)
  • Big Ben, the world’s largest four-faced, chiming clock first started ticking (1859)
  • The Soviet Union signed an agreement pledging respect for Outer Mongolia as sovereign to China (1924)
  • Republic of South Africa was founded (1961)
  • The pilot episode of Seinfeld was first broadcast on NBC (1990)
  • The United States announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union (1994)
  • Usain Bolt set a new 100 m world record at the Reebok Grand Prix in the Icahn Stadium in New York City. He ran 9.72s with a tail wind of 1.7 m/s (2008)

201 years ago today, The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also called the Baltimore Basilica, became the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the United States. It was among the first major religious buildings constructed in the nation after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, and is considered the masterpiece of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the ‘Father of American Architecture’.

Built by America’s first professionally-trained architect and Thomas Jefferson’s Architect of the U.S. Capitol, within its walls occurred many famous events, including the funeral Mass of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

Oculus in the Baltimore Basilica, by Smallbones – CC license

Most of the first American bishops were consecrated here—and until recent years, more priests were ordained at the Baltimore Basilica than in any other church in the United States. (1821)

And, 203 years ago today, Walt Whitman, one of America’s greatest poets, was born in New York. He published his seminal collection, Leaves of Grass, when he was 37 years old, which challenged the definition of poetry, and forever changed its form and function.

Published in 1855 with his own money, Leaves of Grass was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. It was considered obscene at the time, but by the end of his life was recognized as a masterpiece. He also wrote, “O Captain! My Captain!,” a 1865 poem about the death of Abraham Lincoln. WATCH a short bio below… and see 10 mementos of his life in the N.Y. Times. (1819)

 

And, Happy 92nd Birthday to actor–director Clint Eastwood who starred in Hollywood Westerns and cop films like Dirty Harry that simply defined the word ‘cool’. He went on to write and direct some of the most acclaimed films of the 21st century—Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Gran Torino—all while in his 70s and 80s. For the first two, Eastwood won Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture, as well as nominations for Best Actor.

1990 photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk, CC license on Flickr (Found Slide, Ira Richolson Collection)

Retired from acting, he churned out nine films in his 80s, and has expressed no desire to retire from directing. He is also the former Mayor of the California city, Carmel-by-the-Sea.

His greatest commercial success was the comedy Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and its sequel, but he also directed the mystery drama Mystic River and the war film Letters from Iwo Jima (for which he received Academy Award nominations), the drama Changeling (2008), and the sports drama Invictus (2009). The biopic American Sniper (2014) set box-office records for the largest January release ever and was also the largest opening ever for an Eastwood film.

In 2019, he premiered his film Richard Jewell, depicting the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, when the security guard who found the bomb was later accused of the crime. It starred Sam Rockwell, Jon Hamm, and Kathy Bates, who earned an Oscar nominations for the film. WATCH his newest trailer from November… (1930)

 

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European Commission overreported weather shelling out by €72 billion, auditors find


Only 13% of EU expending 2014-20 was applicable to local weather action, not 20% as claimed, the European Courtroom of Auditors mentioned, with the biggest gap in farming policy

Shelling out on local weather motion in the EU’s 2014-2020 spending plan was “not as high as reported” in official paperwork, the European Courtroom of Auditors (ECA) said in a report published on Monday (30 May).

The court docket explained the European Union experienced missed its concentrate on of expending at the very least 20% of its funds on weather action by close to 7 proportion points.

The European Fee, which manages and implements the EU budget, previously documented that €216 billion was spent on climate action throughout the 2014-2020 budgetary interval.

In truth, related climate investing was additional possible to be close to 13% of the EU spending plan – or €144 billion – rather than the documented 20%, ECA located.

“Not all the documented climate-associated shelling out less than the EU funds was really applicable to climate motion,” stated Joëlle Elvinger, the ECA member who led the audit.

Recent reporting is carried out “before the expenses are actually spent”, this means figures are “inflated by unused or non-disbursed funds,” Elvinger informed journalists at a press briefing right now.

Additionally, “the methodology for tracking local weather shelling out considers only the possible favourable effects on local climate and does not track prospective unfavorable impacts of actions that provide other EU targets,” she additional.

Citing natural and organic farming as an example, Elvinger claimed the Commission’s figures disregard opportunity disadvantages this kind of as declining agricultural productivity and mounting grain imports from nations with less stringent environmental regulations.

It is in farming coverage that climate shelling out is overstated the most – by just about €60 billion, according to ECA. In the same way, the weather contribution of paying in areas like rail transportation, electrical power, and biomass tends to be overstated as very well, the auditors stated.

In its report, ECA built many suggestions to superior link the EU’s expenditure to its weather and energy objectives. Amid people is a suggestion that the Commission justifies the climate relevance of funding underneath the Popular Agricultural Coverage (CAP), which represents all around 40% of all EU paying out.

“The Commission need to report on the contribution designed by local climate paying to EU climate and electrical power aims. It ought to focus in individual on how to evaluate the affect of the budget on mitigating local weather change,” the report said.

Worryingly, problems are possible to keep on being in the current budgetary time period, which operates from 2021 until finally 2027, ECA said.

In the latest spending plan, the European Union has committed to devote at minimum 30% on local weather action, a concentrate on which rises to 37% when it will come to the EU’s €800 billion restoration fund from the Covid-19 disaster, adopted in 2020.

But the auditors expressed “concerns about the reliability” of local climate reporting under the latest time period, stating “most of the challenges recognized for 2014-2020 nonetheless remain”.

Australia: Billionnaire activist forces most important polluter into local weather-welcoming U-transform

Individuals troubles are even probably to get worse for the reason that of the “unclear inbound links involving payments and climate objective” underneath the EU’s coronavirus restoration fund, which introduces the basic principle of “do no considerable harm” whereby paying out really should not threaten any of the EU’s environmental or climate objectives.

Beneath the new €800 billion fund, the Commission will calculate contributions to weather shelling out upfront, based on the estimated costs laid out in countrywide paying ideas. But examining compliance will be tough, ECA warned, expressing there is a sizeable “risk of misstating weather spending” in relation to budgeted amounts.

“We identified opportunity problems these types of as the possibility of misstating local climate spending” in situations exactly where the variance among the amounts fully commited and in fact put in are significant, Elvinger said.

One more hazard is that the milestones and targets that induce payments beneath the fund are not clearly joined to weather aims, Elvinger added. “This raises the concern of the reliability of potential weather reporting, which could possibly be subject matter to future audits,” she warned.

The European Fee stood by its first evaluation, stating 20.6% of the EU’s 2014-2020 price range was invested on local climate motion. “Contrary to the ECA’s assertions, the Commission’s methodology for the EU spending budget is sound and reputable precisely mainly because its underlying assumptions are crystal clear, sensible, transparently communicated and appropriately utilized,” it stated.

Hunting at the current budgetary time period (2021-2027), the Commission said the EU has previously “significantly strengthened” its methodology, for illustration by “moving absent from marking local weather relevance dependent on the intent of an intervention to basing it on the anticipated effect”.

This post was created by Euractiv and republished below a content sharing settlement.

Megan Darby



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Peaking productivity by 2060 | Nature Climate Change


Climate change and rising CO2 concentrations have been increasing plant productivity over the past two decades. Now, research projects that this increase will cease over most of the Northern Hemisphere, except the Arctic, by 2060.

So far, GPP has been increasing in response to warming and to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations through a process called CO2 fertilization. However, this increase in plant productivity is not endless, as plants have an optimum temperature range after which productivity declines again. Previous work3, based on flux tower observations, suggests that peak photosynthesis temperatures have already been surpassed a few months per year in the lower latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, yet wider trends have been uncertain. In the wider context of the future of the net land carbon sink, this is one line of evidence that future climate change might drive a shift from a fertilization-dominated carbon sink towards a carbon sink dominated by the impacts of a warming world4.



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Future reversal of warming-enhanced vegetation productivity in the Northern Hemisphere


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    Good News in History, May 30


    On this day in 1906, chocolate tycoon Milton Hersey opened Hersheypark which he built as a leisure park for his employees. Over the years, a Merry-go-Round and boat rides on the creek that ran through the park were added, but It wasn’t until 1923 when the first roller coaster was built, “The Wild Cat.” Over the next 70 years 9 roller coasters were added, a water park, themed areas, a zoo, and other attractions that have seen it win multiple awards. One of the key features is the adjacent “Hershey’s Chocolate World,” where visitors can tour Hershey candy and chocolate factory. READ about it’s humble history… (1908)

    Hersheypark circa 1950.

    Back in the days where business owners didn’t just build products and corporations, but entire towns, Hershey had big plans when he arrived in the area around Spring Creek, in Pennsylvania.

    Mr. Hershey had surveyed the area 3 years earlier to establish a town called Hershey, and decided to add a park near Spring Creek. At its founding the park was just that: a park, with green spaces, a walking bridge over the creek, pavilions and a baseball diamond. When it opened in 1906, the festivities included a baseball game, in which Hershey defeated the Crescent Club of Harrisburg by a score of 13–1.

    MORE Good News on this Day in History:

    • Memorial Day was officially first observed in the U.S. when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery across the river from Washington, D.C. (1868)
    • Albania became an independent nation with the signing of the Treaty of London (1913)
    • The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. (1922)
    • Pioneering guitar player for Rage Against the Machine, Tom Morello, is born. (1964)
    • Cal Ripken Jr. of the Baltimore Orioles began his streak playing in the first of a record 2,632 consecutive major league baseball games (1982)
    • Spain became the 16th member of NATO (1982)
    • A 33-foot high “Goddess of Democracy” statue was unveiled in Tiananmen Square by student demonstrators in China (1989)
    • Germany announced plans to abandon nuclear power over the next 11 years, outlining an ambitious strategy to replace it with renewable energy sources in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster (2011)
    • Viswanathan Anand, at 43, won his fifth World Chess Championship and, for the fourth year in a row, brought home the crown to India, the birthplace of chess—and the only place where a celebrity player gets mobbed in the streets (2012)

    81 years ago today, Manolis Glezos and Apostolos Santas climbed up the the ruins of the Acropolis in Athens, tore down the Nazi swastika, and replaced it with the Greek flag. The resistance fighting duo suffered torture and imprisonment for their stunt, but they inspired Greeks, and all subjected people everywhere, to work against the occupation, and became international anti-Nazi heroes.

    nazi flag on Acropolis_Athens-1941-Bundesarchiv

    Even in his 80s, Manolis Glezos was still participating in protest demonstration in Athens, getting sprayed with tear gas and arrested. As an MP of the Coalition of Radical Left in 2014, he was elected to the European Parliament with over 430,000 votes, more than any other candidate in Greece. At age 91, he was also the oldest person elected to the European Parliament.Manolis_Glezos_2007-cc-Michalis Famelis

    Apostolos Santas managed to escape from prison in 1948 and flee to Italy, and later Canada, where he was granted political asylum. In 1962 he returned to Greece, where he spent the rest of his life until his death in 2011 at age 89. (1941)

    Photos by German archives, Acropolis in Athens 1941; and Manolis Glezos by Michalis Famelis; featured image by christine zenino – CC licenses

    By Rich Mitchell, CC license

    And 143 years ago today, Madison Square Garden first opened as an arena in New York City. Seating 10,000 spectators, the iconic venue back then hosted the National Horse Show, P.T. Barnum acts, various boxing matches, and even an oval bicycle racing track with banked curves. The Garden, which is now home to the New York Rangers and Knicks, eventually moved out of this original location at East 26th Street and Madison Avenue in Manhattan. (1879)

    And on this day in 1908, Mel Blanc was born—the voice of so many renown cartoon characters of the 20th century, including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Marvin the Martian, Pepé Le Pew, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, and the Tasmanian Devil. WATCH him perform all the voices on David Letterman…

     

    And, Happy 42nd Birthday to footballer Steven Gerrard who became English royalty with his stellar career playing midfield for Liverpool, as club captain, and leading the England national team. One of the greatest midfielders of his generation, and of all time, Gerrard was awarded the UEFA Club Footballer of the Year award in 2005. Through his 17 seasons at Anfield, the versatile player known for his leadership became the only footballer ever to score in an FA Cup Final, a League Cup Final, a UEFA Cup Final and a UEFA Champions League Final, winning on each occasion.

    Photos by Mr. Phillip Chambers and Эдгар-Брещанов (2018)

    In 2005, Gerrard led Liverpool to a historic fifth European title, being named Man of the Match as Liverpool came from 3–0 down to defeat Milan in what became known as the Miracle of Istanbul. The following year, Gerrard starred in the 2006 FA Cup Final, which has been called The Gerrard Final. Both finals have since become widely regarded as amongst the greatest in the history of each competition. He joined the LA Galaxy club in 2015 before his retirement in 2016, during which he wrote a memoir, My Story.

    Gerrard later became a coach in the Liverpool youth academy and managed their under-18 team, before becoming manager of Scottish Premiership club Rangers in 2018. WATCH some of his famous moves… (1980)

     

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    Billionnaire activist forces Australia’s most significant polluter into local weather-welcoming U-switch


    AGL had planned to break up in two and keep burning coal for another two decades or extra, just before Mike Cannon-Brookes led a shareholder revolt

    This is likely the major story however in Australia’s even now fledgling green strength transition.

    AGL, the country’s greatest coal generator and largest polluter, has been forced to abandon its unwell-deemed ideas to break up in two and hold burning coal for one more two decades and much more. And it has been forced to do so by shareholder activism.

    The fact that coal has been such a touch pad of political debate in the earlier ten years can make this spectacular victory by the activist billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes even extra outstanding.

    For one particular, it shows that resistance to the environmentally friendly strength changeover and science-dependent local climate targets is going from dodgy back again-room political offers and avenue-based mostly protests, to the simple daylight of the boardroom and financial marketplaces.

    Australia now has two of the world’s most powerful and deep-pocketed green strength activists in Cannon-Brookes, the 3rd richest particular person in the nation, and Andrew Forrest, the iron ore billionaire who is the 2nd richest human being in the country, and who is earning a big drive into eco-friendly hydrogen and environmentally friendly ammonia.

    It also has a super industry with trillions of bucks of expense to handle, and a keen awareness that fossil fuel belongings are likely to be stranded and worthless inside a decade or two. The shift is on.

    Remark: Europe really should use its Putin-proofing strength ideas to reinvigorate climate action

    Cannon-Brookes and Forrest are already performing together on what will be the world’s largest photo voltaic plant and battery storage facility, the $30 billion Sun Cable task in the Northern Territory. And they are the two damning in their assessment of those people who suggest new fossil gasoline tasks.

    Certainly, we still have conservative politicians, media and “think tanks”, cheered on by Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart from the sidelines, continue to prosecuting the case for coal, and smearing their faces in coal dust, feigning interest in the upcoming of the coal sector employees.

    But the federal election, barely a week aged, amplifies the eco-friendly vitality change. At the very least 55% of men and women voted for more powerful weather motion, and at minimum a single quarter for a good deal a lot more than that – the supporters of the Teals and the Greens need science-based targets, and to act on them.

    It is likely that AGL saw the producing on the wall from the election consequence, and realised it was kidding by itself if it thought it could preserve on burning brown coal up to 2045 and retain customers at the identical time.

    The existing board – lots of fuel and oil veterans – does not seem intrigued in controlling an accelerated transition, so they are heading for the exit.

    There are still several large questions to be answered about how this performs out, mainly relating to the velocity and extent of the transition that AGL will be ready to execute.

    The Australian Power Sector Operator has outlined a 20 calendar year blueprint that variables in 80% renewables by 2030, no brown coal generators by 2032, and really couple of black coal generators by that time. It is extremely very likely to speed up that state of affairs in coming years, maybe to a comprehensive exit from coal by 2035, or earlier.

    But it is just one thing to design this path, and a further to execute. So considerably is dependent on the principles and the regulations of the sector – which every person knows are not healthy for goal, but which are using an age to re-publish. And there are other essential troubles, including technological know-how integration, social licence for new projects, and transmission in certain, and of course supply chains.

    David Leitch, principal of ITK and co-host of RenewEconomy’s well-liked Electrical power Insiders podcast, says the improve of management at AGL will be welcomed.

    He thinks that AGL might attempt and find a negotiated bid from Grok Ventures, the Cannon-Brookes expenditure vehicle. It will be exciting to see whether or not resources management large Brookfield rejoins Grok in these a undertaking and a joint bid.

    Island states back again Vanuatu’s quest for local weather justice at the UN

    A lot about the long term of AGL’s Loy Yang A brown coal generator, Leitch says, will rely on the mind-set of the Victorian authorities, which has previously privately negotiated a new closure day for the Yallourn brown coal generator in the Latrobe Valley, the details of which have been stored key.

    Yallourn was initially scheduled to near in 2032, and it will now shut in 2028. It is feasible it may have closed even before without having a point out federal government settlement to aid it in troubled instances, and when the solar did glow and the wind did blow, but we don’t know.

    This is the big concern for the green strength transition. We do know, from knowledge from the sudden exit of Hazelwood, and the drawn out saga more than Liddell, that coal closures should be preceded by a ample total of wind, photo voltaic and dispatchable storage crafted beforehand. That’s simpler reported than completed.

    NSW has applied a plan to do just that, even though assuming that all its remaining 5 coal turbines could be gone inside of a decade. Victoria has a significantly less well-defined strategy, but its next large renewables selection this year and its big new thrust into offshore wind displays that it is familiar with it will have to develop right before it closes.

    Remark: Australia excels at exporting the local weather issue. Now it can eventually export answers

    As it stands, only the Labor governments in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory do not have credible ideas to shift past 50% renewables in their respective grids, or even attain that target. It is doable that the massive thrust into inexperienced hydrogen could fix the trouble for them, but they have to have a changeover system for their current workers.

    Cannon-Brookes, in the meantime, can assist get ready AGL for the environmentally friendly energy transition, but he will require to function with and rely on other folks – regulators, rule makers, builders, suppliers, financiers, state and federal governments – to ensure the infrastructure is in area to satisfy people weather targets.

    But that is what is so interesting about the AGL problem. The transition has claimed almost as many AGL CEOs (Andy Vesey, Brett Redman and now Graeme Hunt), as it has claimed Australian key ministers (Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison).

    Now, however, we have a federal govt with a extra formidable coverage (43% emissions reduction and 82% renewables by 2030), and a pretty significant cross-bench in equally houses that will be pushing them to do much additional, particularly on overall economy-wide emissions. And a public that needs alter and is cheering it on.

    This article was made by RenewEconomy and republished under a information-sharing agreement.

    Joe Lo



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    Europe should use its Putin-proofing energy plans to reinvigorate climate action


    Many of the actions being taken for Europe’s energy security will cut emissions – so why not submit a stronger climate target to the UN?

    The ripples of Vladimir Putin’s aggression are travelling far beyond the borders of Ukraine. Impacts include high and volatile energy prices, disruption of supply chains, and worrying prospects for the world’s food supply.

    Beyond these is the shock to international norms and institutions. Russia was chairing the UN Security Council – a body charged with maintaining international peace and security – even as its tanks began crushing international peace and security on the Ukrainian border.

    Undermining the Russian war machine by eliminating fossil fuel imports is a central focus of governments opposed to the Putin regime. To build security against the Putins of this world on an ongoing basis, they also need to reinforce the legitimacy of the multilateral world order.

    This includes restoring confidence and momentum in the UN climate negotiations, a process in which Putin’s Russia has invested nothing but cynicism. Success in the UN climate process, given the growing links between climate impacts and conflict, is essential for global security.

    G7 pushes Japan to speed up clean energy transition at home and abroad

    Governments are not doing enough to limit global warming to the Paris Agreement targets. National emission-cutting plans are too shallow, their delivery highly uncertain. Many highlight targets for 2050, 2060 or even 2070, while giving little detail on decarbonising this decade, which the science shows to be essential.

    Self-professed climate leaders are not immune: the EU’s nationally determined contribution (NDC), its formal commitment to other governments made through the UN climate convention, pledges to cut emissions by 55% (from 1990 levels) by 2030 – a target which the Climate Action Tracker calculates should be around 62%. 

    Russia’s invasion has spurred many governments, particularly in Europe, to ramp up their decarbonisation plans for this decade. They are not calling it “decarbonisation” – the headline is “energy security” – but in most cases the effect will be the same. Making energy use more efficient, speeding the build-out of renewables and battery storage, accelerating a transition to electric vehicles, mandating and supporting heat pump installation… all of these ideas are being enacted as responses to Russian aggression, but could have been taken from any recent blueprint for climate change mitigation. True, some governments are also building gas infrastructure; but speeding up the clean energy transition will shorten the working lifetime of any new wells and LNG import terminals.

    The European Commission has proposed increasing the bloc’s renewable energy target for 2030 from 40% to 45%. The amount of emissions eliminated will depend on the precise mix of fossil fuels that is replaced, but will certainly be a few percentage points. The Commission also wants to increase the 2030 energy efficiency improvement target too, from 9% to 13% – logically, another few percent. Other measures taken by the EU or its member states offer the promise of cutting emissions; could the 62% figure, or even better, be within reach?. 

    For governments that profess to care about both climate change and the multilateral world order, the obvious next step is to calculate the impact their new energy security plans will have on emissions, and publish them as formal emission-cutting targets in upgraded NDCs ahead of this year’s UN climate summit in Egypt in November.

    This would set down a strong marker of commitment to climate action and international cooperation in one fell swoop. The 2021 UN climate summit in Glasgow ended with governments calling on each other to “revisit and strengthen” their commitments to 2030: this would start the ball rolling. It would throw down a gauntlet to countries politically allied on the Ukraine crisis, whether in NATO like the US and Canada or outside it like fellow G20 members Japan and Australia. It would challenge them to show they have internalised that when rogue fossil fuelled dictators are the problem, cooperative climate action has to be part of the solution.

    Analysis: Russian climate action and research is collateral damage in Putin’s war on Ukraine

    Meanwhile for the US, contributing its fair share of international climate finance would help the poorest nations decarbonise and build their security, acting as both an economic and diplomatic bulwark against Russia. 

    Just four days after Putin’s tanks rolled across the border, all governments – including, weirdly, his – approved the Working Group Two summary report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In doing so they agreed that “…any further delay in concerted anticipatory global action… will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

    Getting through the window before it closes not only means nations decarbonising faster, it entails building confidence between nations that there is multilateral commitment to the UN convention, the Paris Agreement and emission cuts based on science and equity. NDC upgrades on the back of anti-Putin clean energy commitments offer the way forward. Do the sums, publish the NDCs; combat climate change, as well as the Kremlin. 

    Richard Black is senior associate at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) and an honorary research fellow at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London.

    Megan Darby



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    Good News in History, May 29


    69 years ago today, New Zealander Edmund Hillary, and Nepalese Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest. The Kiwi was part of the ninth expedition to summit Everest sponsored by the British Empire. No climber has ever got to the top without the help of the Sherpa people, a fact which many point out. Hillary went many steps further, and even after achieving instant celebrity, he devoted himself to assisting the Sherpa people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he established. His efforts are credited with the construction of many schools and hospitals in Nepal. READ the best quotes from their exquisitely documented ascent… (1953)

    Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay having just come down around 11:30 AM from the summit of Everest – CC 3.0. Jamling Tenzing Norgay

    The expedition party was enormous, and consisted of over 400 people, including 362 porters, 20 Sherpa guides, and 10,000 pounds (4,500 kg) of baggage. Cameraman Tom Stobart was Hillary’s room-mate in Kathmandu. He described Hillary “a skeleton as tall as I was… a hatchet-thin face, and seemed tied together with steel”.

    “I noticed a crack between the rock and the snow sticking to the East Face,” Hillary wrote. “I crawled inside and wriggled and jammed my way to the top… Tenzing slowly joined me and we moved on. I chopped steps over bump after bump, wondering a little desperately where the top could be. Then I saw the ridge ahead dropped away to the north and above me on the right was a rounded snow dome. A few more whacks with my ice-axe and Tenzing and I stood on top of Everest.

    Tenzing Norgay became a national hero, receiving awards from both Nepal and India. While Hillary was immediately knighted, Norgay’s lack of citizenship meant he was given the George Medal for exceptional gallantry absent a military enemy. Speaking several languages, Norgay became first Director of Field Training of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling, when it was set up in 1954. He got permission from the King of Bhutan to serve as guide for the first American tourist party allowed into the country. Both a peak above 25,000 feet and the largest mountain range on Pluto, are named after the legendary Sherpa.

    MORE Good News on this Day in History:

    • Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris  (1913)
    • Crosby, Stills & Nash released their debut album which spawned two Top 40 hits: ‘Marrakesh Express‘ and ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes‘ (1969)
    • Pope John Paul II visited Canterbury Cathedral — the first pontiff ever to do so (1982)
    • First elected and civilian head of state in Nigeria took office after 16 years of military rule (1999)
    • NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery completed the first docking with the International Space Station—remaining for more than a week, loading and unloading supplies, personnel, and trash to make the ISS even more versatile (1999)
    • The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that disabled golfer Casey Martin be given the right to use a cart for riding in tournaments (2001)

    171 years ago today, Sojourner Truth delivered her famous extemporaneous speech in Akron, Ohio, at one of the first Black Women’s Rights Conventions. Born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, her speech, later known as ‘Ain’t I A Woman?’, demanded equal human rights for all women.

    Though there is no transcription of Truth’s speech, but she combined calls for the abolition of slavery with women’s rights, drawing from her strength as a laborer to make her equal rights claims.

    A version was published a month later in the Anti-Slavery Bugle by Rev. Marius Robinson, a newspaper editor who was in the audience. Robinson’s recounting of the speech included no instance of the question ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’—nor did any other newspaper reporting on the event at the time. Later versions were written that incorporated a speech pattern characteristic of Southern slaves. READ an excerpt and learn more about Isabella Baumfree, who gave herself the name Sojourner Truth after she became convinced that God had called her to leave the city and go testify “the hope that was in her”…. (1851)

    Robinson recalled her saying in Akron:

    “I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. [sic] I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too. . . As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, – for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold.

    “The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. . . But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.”

    Over the next 10 years, Truth spoke before dozens, perhaps hundreds, of audiences. From 1851 to 1853, Truth worked with the editor Robinson, and traveled around that state speaking. In 1853, she spoke at a suffragist “mob convention” in New York City; that year she also met Harriet Beecher Stowe.

    A quarter century before she gave her famous address, Truth escaped slavery with her infant daughter to freedom. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.

     

    Photo by Lietmotiv, CC license

    Also on this day, in 1903, Bob Hope was born in a neighborhood near London. The stand-up comedian and actor built a career in America that spanned nearly 80 years, with appearances in more than 54 feature films (often with side-kick Bing Crosby). In addition to hosting the Academy Awards a record 19 times, he was beloved for his USO shows that entertained American military troops—a remarkable 57 tours overseas between WWII in 1941 and Vietnam in 1991. He lived to be 100 years old, with the song “Thanks for the Memory” as his signature tune.

    Today is the International Day of UN Peacekeepers, when nations around the world honor a special kind of soldier—one that sets out to establish order and make peace.

    UN Peacekeeping on Facebook

    Since its founding 74 years ago, more than 1 million UN peacekeepers in blue hats have undertaken 72 field missions and negotiated more than 172 peaceful settlements to end regional conflicts, and enabled people in more than 45 countries to participate in free and fair elections. More than 3,900 peacekeepers have lost their lives serving the cause of peace under the UN flag.

    Women peacekeepers make invaluable contributions because they have greater access to communities. And, while they have women’s ears, they encourage them to become a meaningful part of local politics.

    Today, UN Peacekeeping deploys more than 95,000 military, police and civilian personnel in 13 operations located in some of the most conflict-ridden and austere locations in the world. To mark the occasion at the UN Headquarters in New York, the Secretary-General will lay a wreath in honor of all peacekeepers who have lost their lives over the past seven decades. And the Dag Hammarskjold medal is awarded posthumously to peacekeepers who have died. (1948)

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    Your Influenced Weekly Horoscope From Rob Brezsny: A ‘Free Will Astrology’


    Our husband or wife Rob Brezsny provides his weekly knowledge to enlighten our imagining and inspire our mood. Rob’s Totally free Will Astrology, is a syndicated weekly column showing in around a hundred publications. He is also the author of Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How All of Development Is Conspiring To Shower You with Blessings. (A free preview of the book is obtainable here.)

    Listed here is your weekly horoscope…

    Totally free WILL ASTROLOGY – 7 days of Might 28, 2022
    Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com

    GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
    “Reality is not only there it does not merely exist,” claimed writer Paul Celan. “It have to be sought out and gained.” I feel that is excellent information for you proper now. But what does it indicate in functional phrases? How can you find out and gain actuality? My 1st suggestion is to place your personalized stamp on each condition you encounter. Do one thing delicate or sturdy to make every single celebration provide your specific pursuits and ambitions. My 2nd suggestion is to discern the illusions that other men and women are projecting and avoid purchasing into those people misunderstandings. My 3rd suggestion is to act as if it is usually attainable to make daily life richer, much more vivid, and much more meaningful. And then determine out how to do that.

    Cancer (June 21-July 22):
    Wilma Mankiller was the 1st feminine Principal Chief of the Cherokee Country. She stated, “The cow runs absent from the storm, when the buffalo prices instantly towards it—and receives via it more quickly.” Political analyst Donna Brazile expounded on Mankiller’s technique: “Whenever I’m confronted with a tough obstacle, I do not extend the torment. I turn into the buffalo.” I advise Mankiller’s and Brazile’s approach for you and me in the coming days, my fellow Cancerian. Now please excuse me as I race in the way of the squall I see brewing in the length.

    LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
    The New Yorker is an influential Pulitzer Prize-profitable journal that capabilities witty creating and impeccable actuality-checking. How did the magazine get its begin? It was co-founded in 1925 by Harold Ross, who experienced dropped out of university at age 13. He edited each and every situation for the next 26 yrs. I’m sensing the risk of a comparable advancement in your everyday living, Leo. In the coming months, you may possibly get included in a task that appears to be past the attain of your official capacities or official qualifications. I urge you to move forward as if you can and will thrive.

    VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
    Virgo-born Jocko Willink is a retired naval officer and writer. In his book Self-control Equals Liberty: Discipline Handbook, he lays down his manifesto: “Become the discipline—embrace its chilly and relentless energy. And it will make you far better and stronger and smarter and speedier and much healthier than anything else. And most vital: It will make you no cost.” Though I do not be expecting you to embrace Willink’s demanding ethic with the exact same fanatical grip, I imagine you will benefit from executing the finest you can. The cosmic rhythms will aid you if you make a enjoyment and earnest hard work to cultivate liberation through discipline.

    LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
    “Some nights you are the lighthouse, some nights the sea,” writes Libran creator Ocean Vuong. According to my astrological analysis, you are improved suited to be the lighthouse than the sea in the coming days. Currently, you have totally embodied the sea, and that has geared up you well to deliver illumination. You have acquired new techniques about the tides and the waves. You are attuned to the rhythms of the undercurrents. So I hope you will now embrace your job as a beacon, Libra. I hope that individuals will appear to your radiance to tutorial and encourage them.

    SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
    “Movie people are possessed by demons, but a quite low variety of demons,” observes creator Edna O’Brien. She should really know. She has hung out with quite a few huge film stars. Since you’re probably not in the movie small business yourself, your demons may be substantially increased top quality than all those of celebrity actors and directors. And I’m guessing that in the coming weeks, your demons will turn out to be even finer and far more exciting than ever before—even to the issue that they could turn into helpers and advisors. For the ideal outcomes, address them with regard and be inclined to hear to their strategies.

    SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
    I’m all in favor of you receiving what you yearn for. I have no inhibitions or caveats as I urge you to unleash all your ingenuity and tricky perform in quest of your attractive aims. And in the hope of inspiring you to up grade your potential to satisfy these sacred potential clients, I offer you a suggestion from Sagittarian creator Martha Beck. She wrote, “To bring in a thing that you want, grow to be as joyful as you consider that issue would make you.”

    CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
    According to author Caroline Myss, “You should really see every thing about your life as a lesson.” Whoa! Actually? Every excursion to the grocery retail outlet ought to be a mastering possibility? Myss states indeed! For instance, let’s say you are in the snack meals aisle and you’re tempted to put Doritos Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips and Lay’s Barbecue Potato Chips in your cart. But your gut is screaming at you, “That stuff is not nutritious for you!” And nevertheless you make your mind up to dismiss your gut’s advice. You purchase and consume both of those baggage. Myss would say you have squandered a learning option: “You’ve harmed your self by blocking your intuitive voice,” she writes. Now, in accordance with astrological omens, Capricorn, here’s your research assignment: Regard every approaching celebration as a possibility to discover how to have faith in your intuition much better.

    AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
    An Aquarian poet was disturbed when a suitor informed her, “I’m really very fond of you.” She responded, “I don’t like fond. It appears like a thing you would tell a puppy. Give me like, or very little. Throw your fond in a pond.” I really do not advise you to undertake a comparable mindset anytime soon, Aquarius. In my oracular opinion, you ought to wholeheartedly welcome fondness. You must honor it and rejoice it. In by itself, it is a loaded, intricate mind-set. And it may perhaps also direct, if you welcome it, to even much more complex and profound interweavings.

    PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
    “I want a playlist of all the songs I used to really like but forgot about,” wrote a Tumblr blogger. I consider you could use these a playlist, also, Pisces. In reality, I would appreciate to see you acquire a host of memos that remind you of all the issues you like and will need and are interested in—but have overlooked about or neglected. The coming weeks will be an outstanding time to get better what has been shed. I hope you will re-build connections and restore earlier glories that ought to have to accompany you into the upcoming.

    ARIES (March 21-April 19):
    In defining the crucial things at participate in in a standard Aries person’s agenda, I’m not inclined to invoke the terms “sometimes” or “maybe.” Nor do I make repeated use of the phrases “periodically,” “if,” or “ordinarily.” Rather, my primary figuring out time period for lots of Aries characters is “NOW!!!” with three exclamation factors. In referring to your sign’s activities, I also rely greatly on the next descriptors: pronto, presto, force, immediately, why not?, have interaction, declare, activate, venture into, enterprising, seize, supply, and wield. You are authorized to totally activate and deploy these qualities in the upcoming three months.

    TAURUS (April 20-Might 20):
    I like Joan Didion‘s definitions of self-regard. As you enter a favorable section for deepening and enhancing your self-respect, they may perhaps be handy. Didion explained self-respect is a “sense of one’s intrinsic well worth,” and added, “People who respect by themselves are willing to settle for the threat that the undertaking will go bankrupt, that the liaison may not convert out to be a single in which each individual working day is a holiday getaway. They are willing to invest some thing of by themselves.” And it’s possible the most critical thing about self-respect, in accordance to Didion, is that it is “a discipline, a habit of mind that can by no means be faked but can be made, trained, coaxed forth.”

    WANT More? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 moment meditations on the existing state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique day-to-day text concept services at: RealAstrology.com

    (Zodiac images by Numerologysign.com, CC license)

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    G7 pushes Japan to velocity up clear electrical power changeover at home and overseas


    Campaigners explained the G7 assertion as a breakthrough, declaring it would control Japanese help for gas enlargement in Asia and worldwide

    Japan has agreed to quit funding fossil fuel initiatives internationally by the conclude of 2022 and thoroughly clean up its ability method by 2035, less than tension from the rest of the G7.

    Next a 3-day conference in Berlin, the G7’s power and setting ministers issued a assertion on Friday committing to these objectives and supporting “an accelerated international unabated coal period-out”.

    It marked the most important shift in plan for fossil fuel-reliant Japan. An annotated draft seen by Climate Dwelling Information showed that Japan had experimented with to take out equally commitments from the communique but European nations and Canada defended them.

    “There is no wavering in our motivation to 1.5C… the need to have for action on decarbonisation was reaffirmed at the G7,” mentioned Japan’s atmosphere minister Toshitaka Ooka at a press conference.

    Japan usually takes around the G7 presidency up coming year. Ooka reported energy difficulties would be “the most vital challenge”. 

    Analysts and campaigners explained the assertion as a gamechanger for world-wide decarbonisation endeavours.

    “The close of unabated coal ability AND Gasoline Electric power is now coming into sight,” Ember’s Dave Jones tweeted.

    Cost of Oil campaigner Laurie Van Der Burg reported Japan signing up to the communique was “an vital breakthrough” as the place has been “very aggressively backing the enlargement of gasoline in Asia but also throughout the world.”

    Japan is 1 of the world’s leading financiers of fossil fuels and had been the only G7 country not to signal up to a pledge at past year’s Cop26 summit to halt that move. Between 2018 and 2020, Japan provided $10.9bn a yr to fossil gas initiatives in other nations around the world. This is much increased than finance provided by the US or European G7 associates and a little fewer than Canada.

    It was also the only country not to have a system to phase fossil fuels out of its energy procedure by 2035. By 2030, it aims to get 59% of its electrical energy from renewables and nuclear energy. In 2020, 70% of Japan’s electric power was created from gas and coal, with just 20% coming from renewables.

    African nations’ sprint for gas exposes division at the UN and ‘hypocrisy’ in Europe

    Jones explained a 2035 target as a “challenge” but “definitely achievable” for Japan. “The noticeable position to get started is scaling up rooftop solar and wind vitality, which could aid Japan produce a far more protected and sustainable electrical power method by 2035,” he explained. 

    “Replacing fossil fuels with clean up electrical power with the speed demanded will be a problem for Japan,” explained Hanna Hakko, senior analyst at E3G. “Extra modelling and policy organizing will be urgently wanted.”

    But campaigners were optimistic about the way of vacation. “The language in the statement is solid and goes past the Japanese government’s former posture,” Kimiko Hirata, worldwide director of the Kiko community, a Japanese environmental NGO, explained to Climate Property News.

    Although Japan has not committed to period out coal – its latest vitality plan forecasts that 19% of its electrical energy will arrive from coal in 2030 – Hirata mentioned the 2035 decarbonisation target implied a coal exit. “This is completely new for Japan,” Hirata claimed, contacting for more powerful language on coal phaseout at subsequent month’s leaders’ summit.

    “Ending worldwide fossil fuel finance is also a major stage,” stated Hirata. “Japan is subsidising gas exploration. Can they cease every little thing by 2022? This is a large query mark.”

    “The renewed Japanese ambition and the new govt in Australia ought to assist supercharge Asia’s electric power changeover, and will surely drive a rethink in Korea to action up,” Jones informed Weather Dwelling News.



    Isabelle Gerretsen



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    Coming out of the naughty corner


    Indicator up to get our weekly publication straight to your inbox, moreover breaking news, investigations and additional bulletins from essential occasions

    After practically a ten years of capture by local climate deniers and delayers, Australia has a chief promising to get it out of the “naughty corner”.

    Anthony Albanese is completely ready to say sorry, hug a Pacific islander and clean up up the mess. Or, in his terms, make Australia “a renewable electrical power superpower”.

    With some votes nevertheless getting counted, his Australian Labor Get together is just one seat limited of a majority in the decreased dwelling of parliament. If it receives more than the line, Albanese could not depend on the help of Greens and “Teal independents” to govern. He would do nicely to heed their burst of reputation, all the same.

    Labor intends to submit an up to date 2030 emissions concentrate on for Australia of comparable ambition to Canada, Japan and South Korea, backed by procedures supporting renewables and electric autos. And – subject to negotiations with Japanese Europe, whose transform it is – co-host a Cop local weather summit with a Pacific island nation in 2024.

    What it has not dedicated to is curbing advancement of coal, oil and fuel for export. Labor’s international climate finance provide is underwhelming.

    As the Australia Institute’s Richie Merzian writes, the place needs to begin exporting the solutions to climate modify, not the difficulty.

    Targets are not adequate. Justin Trudeau told us in 2015 “Canada is back”, only to preside above oil industry expansion and soaring emissions.

    The weather entire world will decide the Albanese Administration by coal and fuel projects cancelled, emissions minimize and pounds sent to communities on the frontlines.

    This week’s news…

    …and comment

    There was extra encouraging information from this week’s G7 local weather ministerial in Berlin. The statements that arise from these summits typically replicate the lowest prevalent denominator. But just often, they travel much better ambition.

    Japan has signed up to language on fossil fuel finance that really should curb its aggressive help for gasoline tasks in Asia and over and above. And it was the last holdout to agree to substantially decarbonise its energy blend by 2035.

    As always, check the little print. But the mood music is good for a a lot quicker clean up electrical power transition in the Asia-Pacific.

    Megan Darby



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    Good News in History, May 27


    72 years ago, Linnanmäki, a very unique kind of amusement park opened in Helsinki, Finland. Along with containing roller coasters, theme parks, carnival food and all that good stuff, Linnanmäki is owned and operated by the non-profit Children’s Day Foundation, which raises and donates money to Finish child welfare work. In 2019 it handed over 4.5 million of its hard earned euros, and to date has donated €120 million. READ how this unique park came about… (1950)

    An aerial view of Linnanmäki Finland – CC 3.0. Simbe

    In 1950, six child welfare organizations leased a small amount of land in the middle of a recreation area on “Water Castle Hill,” a park space containing two water towers. After they set up an amusement park, three successive lease renewals saw the area grow, until the six organizations united to become Children’s Day.

    In addition to the amusement rides and attractions the park also contains the Peacock, a historical theatre built in 1957 and known for its musical productions. Several traditional Finnish festivals are held in the park every year, like the Carnival of Light (Valokarnevaali).

    MORE Good News on this Day in History:

    • Rachel Carson, ecologist and author of the best-selling 1962 book about the dangers of pesticides, Silent Spring, which became one of the most influential books in the modern environmental movement, was born in Pennsylvania. (1907)
    • The Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California (1937)
    • Buddy Holly and the Crickets released their first record, ‘That’ll Be The Day’ (1957)
    • Australians voted in favor of a constitutional referendum granting the Australian government the power to make laws to benefit Indigenous Australians and to count them in the national census (1967)

    Happy 86th birthday to actor Louis Gossett Jr, who became the second Black man ever to win an Oscar for acting after playing a gunnery sergeant in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman, for which he earned the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

    Born in Brooklyn, a sports injury shifted his career path from athletics to drama classes in high school, but he was offered another opportunity to play varsity basketball during his college years at NYU, but instead he concentrated on theater.

    Gossett’s Broadway theatre credits include A Raisin in the Sun (1959)—and he made his cinematic debut in 1961 with the play’s film version. He also won an Emmy for his role as a slave in the 1977 TV miniseries Roots.

    His new movie coming soon is called Not To Forget and aims to raise awareness and money for Alzheimer’s research, co-starring 4 other Academy Award winners: Cloris Leachman, Tatum O’Neal, George Chakiris, and the late Olympia Dukakis. WATCH his Oscar-winning performance… (1936)

     – Photo credit: 2017 by Canadian Film Centre, CC bt 2.0 license

     

    28 years ago today, the Nobel prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn flew back to his native Russia after 20 years of exile in the United States.

    1974 photo by Verhoeff Bert / Anefo, CC license

    The 75-year-old was given an emotional homecoming greeted by 2,000 people bearing flowers and gifts, reported the BBC. Imprisoned by Stalin for ten years for political dissent, Solzhenitsyn was later stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974 for attacking the regime  in The Gulag Archipelago. In 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev restored his citizenship and treason charges against him were dropped. (1994)

     

    And, 59 years ago today, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan album was first released. His second album, it showcased a quantum leap in Dylan’s songwriting talent that propelled him to international fame, with songs like Blowin’ in the Wind; Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right; and, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall. The LP established this Minnesota youth as the leader of the singer-songwriter tribe, and a musical muse for the 60s protest movement. The disk even went to No.1 on the UK charts. (1963)

     

    Also, on this day 45 years ago, ‘Declan McManus’ made his live performance debut in London as Elvis Costello.

    The prodigious singer songwriter’s first 3 albums–including his critically acclaimed debut, My Aim Is True–all appeared on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. WATCH a cool video of his Top 10, including “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding… (1977)

     

    92 years ago today, the Chrysler Building opened to the public in New York City. Constructed by Walter Chrysler, founder of the automotive company, the Art Deco skyscraper served as the corporation’s headquarters and lifted up the languishing East Side of Manhattan from 1930 until the 1950s.

    Mauricio Chavez

    With its silver spire, it became the tallest building in the world for 11 months, measuring 1046 feet (319 m)—but it is still the tallest ever made from brick. Outside the corner points of the 61st floor are eight polished steel eagle heads, perched like hood ornaments—and decorating the 31st floor are replicas of the 1929 Chrysler radiator caps.

    640px-Chrysler_building-_top-CC-LeenaHietanen
    Leena Hietanen, CC license

    Though the architect was William Van Alen, Mr. Chrysler overrode the designer’s vision of a round top, and ordered stainless steel-covered sunbeam arches shining on triangular windows on a pointy terraced crown. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America’s Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. WATCH a video about the building narrated by Chrysler’s grandson… (1930)

     

    SHARE the Milestones, Memories, and Music…



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    Fossil-fuel stranded asset risks held by individuals in OECD countries and non-OECD governments


    Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

    This is a summary of: Semieniuk, G. et al. Stranded fossil-fuel assets translate to major losses for investors in advanced economies. Nat. Clim. Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01356-y (2022).



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    Stranded fossil-fuel assets translate to major losses for investors in advanced economies


    Global energy demand

    To generate global oil and gas demand and price time series for each scenario, we use the IAM E3ME-FTT-GENIE13,14 framework based on observed technology evolution dynamics and behaviour measured in economic and technology time series. It covers global macroeconomic dynamics (E3ME), S-shaped energy technological change dynamics (FTT)15,16,17, fossil-fuel and renewable-energy markets41,42, and the carbon cycle and climate system (GENIE)18. We project economic change, energy demand, energy prices and regional energy production. Global energy demand is only weakly dependent upon the choice of IAM (Supplementary Note 10 and Supplementary Figs. 10–13).

    The E3ME-FTT-GENIE integrated framework is described in Supplementary Note 1. The full set of equations underpinning the framework is given and explained in Mercure et al.13. Assumptions for all scenarios are described in Supplementary Note 2.

    Energy supply

    The allocation of oil and gas production, revenues and income is estimated by integrating data from the Rystad Ucube43 dataset in the form of break-even cost distributions at the asset level into E3ME-FTT-GENIE’s energy market model. The Rystad dataset documents 43,439 oil and gas existing and potential production sites worldwide covering most of the current global production and existing reserves and resources. It provides each site’s break-even oil and gas prices, reserves, resources and production rates. We use this information with the exception of Rystad’s projected rates of asset production and depletion44. Instead, our projections are based on E3ME-FTT-GENIE’s energy market model, derived from a dynamic fossil-fuel resource-depletion model13 that does not rely on Rystad assumptions.

    The energy market model assumes that each site has a likelihood of being in a producing mode that is functionally dependent on the difference between the prevailing marginal cost of production and its own breakeven cost. The marginal cost is determined by searching, iteratively with the whole of E3ME, for the value at which the supply matches the E3ME demand, which is itself dependent on energy carrier prices. Dynamic changes in marginal costs are interpreted as driving dynamic changes in energy commodity prices.

    The Rystad dataset includes information about each asset’s location (country of production), the owners of the asset (among 3,113 fossil-fuel companies) and the country of the owners’ headquarters. For each asset, annual levels of oil and gas production, revenue and income are estimated per scenario and aggregated at country of production or firm headquarters country. We estimate stranded assets by comparing expected discounted profit streams under a realignment from a baseline to policy scenario at a high level of disaggregation (asset-level). Then, by aggregating the losses at the firm and country level, we can study the loss propagation from the asset level to the fossil-fuel companies, and from the country of production to the headquarters countries (see detail in section Asset-specific and aggregated stranding).

    The regional production levels are based on production to reserve ratios, which are exogenous parameters representing producer decisions. Initial values are obtained from the data to reproduce current regional production according to the reserve and resources database. Future changes in production to reserve ratios for each region are determined according to chosen rules for the quota and sell-off scenarios. Changes are only imposed on production to reserve ratios of OPEC countries, to either achieve a production quota that is proportional to global output (quota scenario, thereby reducing production to reserve ratios accordingly), or to attempt to maintain constant absolute production while global demand is peaking and declining (sell-off scenario, thereby increasing production to reserve ratios). While oil and gas output in OPEC are thus altered by these parameter changes representing producer decisions, this change affects the allocation of production globally so as to match global demand.

    Renewables are limited through resource costs by technical potentials determined in earlier work41.

    We supplement the Rystad assets with additional oil and gas resources data used in earlier versions of E3ME that are based on national geological surveys and tapped as Rystad reserves decline in the future. This hardly affects our 15 yr horizon but where such resources are tapped, the asset is split among companies active in the asset’s country in 2019 according to their 2019 share in national reserves. We apply the same method of ownership allocation to Open Acreage assets in Rystad.

    Company ownership

    The company financial and ownership data are from Bureau van Dijk’s ORBIS database. They were downloaded in January 2020, typically reporting financial data from 2019 and, where not yet available, from 2018. It is neither feasible nor desirable to download the entire database: 300 million companies, with the download interface allowing about 100,000 companies per download (the exact number depends on the number of variables selected) and most companies small with missing financial and ownership data, and therefore separate from an ownership network. Instead, the download protocol relies on downloading first important (large) companies and then using a snowballing method to capture other companies that are reported as owners of these large companies but were not downloaded. In the first step, data for every company labelled ‘large’ or ‘very large’ were downloaded, as well as the 1,759 companies that were matched with Rystad oil and gas companies. Large and very large companies include all companies that have one of operating revenue >US$13 million, total assets >US$26 million, employees >149 or a stock market listing. Subsequently, via the snowballing method, all companies were downloaded that were listed as shareholders but were not yet downloaded. This iterative procedure was performed six times. Ultimately, the download resulted in 1,772,899 companies (including subsidiaries and their parents) connected by 3,196,429 equity ownership links, with a residual 12,876 unidentified owners. Most ownership links connect companies; however, per country there is one node for individuals and a handful of other summary nodes reflecting partially missing information (for example, unknown investors that are known to be pension funds), thereby summarizing a much larger number of nodes into one for every country. A concordance of types of companies, shareholders and types of financial firms with ORBIS indicators is provided in Supplementary Table 2. Further discussion of limitations of the data is provided in Supplementary Note 5.

    Matching Rystad with ORBIS data was done manually due to widely varying spelling conventions. Many companies in Rystad were abbreviated, for example, NNPC, which is the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in ORBIS. In total, 1,759 Rystad companies could be matched unambiguously, accounting for 93.4% of the total discounted profit loss calculated in Rystad for the medium realignment.

    Equity links occasionally summed to more than 100% of company ownership, most likely because the ORBIS dataset does not relate to a specific snapshot in time. When this happened, ownership fractions were scaled proportionately to sum to 100%. When ownership links summed to less than 100% ownership, the residual ownership would remain in the company as ultimate corporate shareholder (stage 3) and assigned on a country-by-country basis to an ‘unknown’ owner node in stage 4 or a ‘government’ node if the company is a state-owned company.

    Imputation of missing company data

    Roughly 1.3 million of the 1.77 million companies in the network have some missing balance-sheet data. For the network analysis, for all companies we need to know the equity E to determine insolvencies and the total assets A to derive leverage. We estimate missing data from statistical models that are built from the 460,000 companies that have all data for equity E, total assets A, revenue R, number of employees W and size S.

    Equity and total assets are the best predictors of each other (correlation of log-transformed variables, 0.90). Therefore, if only one of these data is missing for a company, we estimate it from the other. If neither is present, we use revenue R to estimate assets A (correlation of log-transformed variables, 0.71) and use the estimated A to estimate equity E. If none of these data are present, we estimate A (and then E) from the number of employees W (correlation of log-transformed variables, 0.45). Linear regressions of natural log-transformed variables are used for these estimates, that is

    $$ln ;v_1 = a + b;ln ;v_2$$

    (1)

    where v1 is the dependent variable, v2 is the predictor, and a and b are fitting constants. We apply these regressions stochastically to avoid artificially reducing the variance of the equity distribution, calculating the mean prediction from the regression relationship, and then adjusting the estimate by drawing randomly from the residual standard error. When applying the regressions, we enforce the inequality A ≥ E, by simply applying E = min(A,E). The regression coefficients and standard errors are tabulated in Supplementary Table 3.

    All of these four data are missing for ∼340,000 companies, and for these we estimate total assets using the categorical variable size S (large, medium, small, very large). For these companies, we do not use regression, but instead draw A randomly from a normal distribution of the log-transformed data which depends upon size. Randomly drawn assets less than $100,000 are assigned a value of $100,000. We then estimate equity from the regression against A (Supplementary Table 4), again enforcing the inequality A ≥ E by applying E = min(A,E).

    The imputation code is available at ref. 45.

    Asset-specific and aggregated stranding

    We define an asset, indexed by k in 1,…, K, as the present value of a sequence of a share of profits from a particular oil or gas field, accruing to an oil or gas company that owns that share including via service- and revenue-sharing contracts46. There are 43,439 unique oil and gas fields with non-zero reserves, and these are partitioned into K = 69,990 ownership shares and hence assets. Oil and gas fields have a production profile at each time t (measured in years) for scenarios a, b. Revenue at asset k at time t in scenario a is defined as the price of oil or gas, pt,a, multiplied by the output, qk,t,a, from the oil or gas field accruing to the owner of k. Profits are estimated in the same way, by subtracting asset-level costs, ck(qk,t,a), which are a function of the quantity produced, from revenue. Thus, we calculate the net present value (NPV) of asset-level profit losses, which we call asset stranding, Ak (a positive number is a profit loss and so stranding is positive), that occurs by an expectations realignment, from baseline, a, to policy scenario, b, as

    $$A_{k,a,b} = mathop {sum }limits_{t = t_0}^{t_0 + T} left[ {left( {p_{t,a}q_{k,t,a} – c_k(q_{k,t,a})} right) – left( {p_{t,b}q_{k,t,b} – c_k(q_{k,t,b})} right)} right]left( frac{1}{1 + r} right)^{t – t_0}$$

    (2)

    where r is the discount rate, which we set to 6%, t0 = 2022 is the time of change of expectations and T = 14 years the horizon over which we assume companies to include future expected profits in their balance sheet.

    These stranded assets are then aggregated. Thus, we calculate the NPV of asset losses, σ, from expectations realignment for some group, G, of assets, from baseline a to policy scenario b as

    $${upsigma}_{G,a,b} = mathop {sum}limits_{k in {{{mathrm{G}}}}} {{{{mathrm{A}}}}_{k,a,b}}$$

    (3)

    where G can be defined by company ownership and/or geography, up to G = {1,…, K} for global asset stranding. To arrive at the loss distribution in stage 1, we partition the set of stranded assets according to their geographic location. To move to further stages, we first partition stranded assets according to their fossil-fuel company ownership. In particular, if the ith fossil-fuel company owns the set of assets Ci, we define the stranded assets of company i as

    $${upsigma}_{i,a,b} = mathop {sum}limits_{k in C_i} {A_{k,a,b}}$$

    (4)

    This distribution of stranded assets across fossil-fuel companies serves as the input for the propagation of ownership risk in our network model.

    Network propagation

    Stranded assets reduce the value of some assets to zero. When these assets are owned by another entity, the loss propagates to them. We call this propagation a ‘shock’. We have built a network model to propagate the stranded asset shock through to ultimate owners. Our study is focused explicitly on the ownership of fossil-fuel assets and so we consider only the direct effects on equity, neglecting distress to the debt network and the potential for fire sales47.

    We have a network comprising N = 1,772,899 companies connected by 3,196,429 equity ownership links. Each link connects an owned company i with one of its owners j, and is defined by the fraction of equity fij of company i owned by company j. The initial shocks from equation (4), which are (s_i^0 = sigma _{i,a,b}) for i = 1,…, N, are distributed across the 1,759 fossil-fuel companies within the network (yielding the loss distribution at stage 2 and propagated through the ownership tree, to get to stage 3).

    At each iteration l we work through the owners and their respective ownership links in turn and transmit any shock si in owned company i to its owners, determined by either fij, the fractional holding of company i by company j or (f_{ij}^m), the fraction of company i owned by the managed funds of company j. Thus the iteration step for owner j can be expressed as

    $$s_j^{l + 1} = s_j^l + mathop {sum }limits_i f_{ij}left( {s_i^l – s_i^{l – 1}} right);{{{mathrm{for}}}};{{{mathrm{all}}}};{{j}}$$

    (5)

    $$m_j^{l + 1} = m_j^l + mathop {sum }limits_i f_{ij}^mleft( {s_i^l – s_i^{l – 1}} right);{{{mathrm{for}}}};{{{mathrm{all}}}};{{j}}$$

    (6)

    where mj is the shock to managed funds, which are not propagated further. Note that (s_j^l) is the total shock experienced at company j accumulated up to iteration l but only the shock increase at the previous iteration is propagated onwards along the ownership chain at each iteration.

    We apply these shocks to a company’s balance sheet. We reduce the asset side by the amount of the shock, and to keep the sheet balanced, we reduce the liability side by subtracting an equal amount of equity. If the shock sj felt by any company exceeds its equity, that company is considered technically insolvent, and any excess shock is not transmitted to the owners of the company. The excess shocks are accumulated to totals for the country and sector of the technically insolvent company (or as a domestic creditor liability in stage 4). Fund managers’ balance sheets are not affected by a shock to their managed funds. We continue looping until convergence, defined to be when the total transmitted shock during an iteration, (mathop {sum }limits_j left( {s_j^l – s_j^{l – 1}} right)), is less than US$100,000. At convergence, we discontinue the propagation algorithm, and then sum the shocks in all companies to derive the aggregated shock at stage 3.

    To derive the accounting summary (which integrates shocks and allocates them by country and sector at stages 3 and 4), we conservatively assume that the complete chain of ownership is consolidated into the ultimate corporate owner, so that no shock is ever counted twice, that is, it is not counted for companies in intermediate steps of the ownership chain. To do so we weight the shock in each company by the fraction of its equity that is not owned by another company in the network. For example, if company A is 30% owned by no other company (either because of lack of ownership data or because it is owned by ultimate owners such as individuals), 30% of the shock to that company will be recorded in the company itself as the ultimate corporate owner, while 70% of the shock will be recorded in the ownership chain. The globally integrated weighted shock is thus calculated as

    $$S = mathop {sum }limits_{i = 1}^{N} left( {1 – F_i} right)s_i + m_i$$

    (7)

    where (F_i = mathop {sum }limits_{j = 1}^{N} f_{ij}) is the fraction of each company that is owned by other companies in the network, noting that this definition means S is identically equal to the input shock (mathop {sum }limits_{i = 1}^{N} sigma _i^0). By summing over subsets of companies, we arrive at the loss distribution at stage 3.

    Finally, to allocate losses from ultimate corporate to ultimate owners (Stage 4) we pass on the shock in ultimate corporate owners to governments, shareholders (both via equity and fund ownership), creditors where losses exceed equity on balance sheets, and, where no ultimate owner is given for equity losses, to an ‘unknown’ ultimate owner.

    The following should be noted with respect to the data. First, in the raw downloaded network data there were ∼100 ownership loops of two or more companies through which companies own each other (most simply when company A owns company B which owns company A). These are unrealistic data errors which may, for instance, arise from the fact that ORBIS data do not relate to a precise snapshot in time. We searched for these ‘bad links’ by applying a uniform shock to every node in the network and iterating forwards. Ownership loops do not converge but instead amplify a shock to infinity. Using this approach, we identified 391 connections within circular loops, and we bypass these connections during the shock propagation. All other loops converge according to a geometric series with a common ratio below 1.

    Second, two alternative sets of imputed data were tested to check the robustness of our results with respect to uncertainty about company equity size driven by stochastic imputation of missing data (see above). The only effect of the size of a company’s equity in the propagation algorithm is to determine whether or not a company is shocked hard enough to make it technically insolvent (at which point the shock stops propagating and is accounted for as a shock to unknown creditors rather than to the company’s owners, see also Supplementary Note 4). The shocks to unknown creditors in the default network agreed to within 5% between two alternative imputed networks (US$402 billion and US$417 billion). These two imputed datasets generated 1,479 and 1,448 insolvencies, respectively, and 1,303 of the insolvent companies were common to both analyses. These comparisons suggest that imputation uncertainties are modest at the highly aggregated level of results we provide, although clearly caution is demanded when interpreting outputs at the company level. Each company is associated with a flag that identifies whether its data have been imputed to aid such interpretation.

    Third, to discuss how stock-market-listed companies and financial companies are affected in the main text section ‘Risk of loss amplification in financial markets’, we make one modification to the assumption of complete consolidation of the ownership chain into the ultimate parent company. Specifically, in Fig. 4, we do not integrate weighted shocks (equation (7)), but instead integrate them as the unweighted sum (mathop {sum }limits_{i = 1}^{N} s_i). Since stock market indices record listed companies, regardless of where they are located in our order of propagation, this method allows us to calculate the impact of our realignments on the stock market. Similarly, since potentially all financial companies in an ownership chain are affected by the loss, this provides an upper bound to the effect on the financial system. Since some financial companies in the ownership chain may be subsidiaries of others, however, without an independent balance sheet, this complete disaggregation of companies can be seen as an upper bound of the effect on the financial system, while the complete aggregation into an ultimate corporate owner can be seen a lower bound.

    The network code is available at ref. 45.



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    The intensification of winter mid-latitude storm tracks in the Southern Hemisphere


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    Good News in History, May 26


    55 years ago today, arguably the greatest album ever, was released. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band sat at number 1 on the UK Albums Chart for 27 weeks, selling 2.5 million copies in the first three months, and 32 million to date. It was lauded by critics for its innovations in songwriting, production and graphic design, for bridging a cultural divide between popular music and high art, and for reflecting the interests of contemporary youth and the counterculture. READ observations of its brilliance but keep children away from McCartney’s strong language… (1967)

    Paul McCartney said:

    “We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top approach. We were not boys, we were men… and thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers.”

    Rolling Stone magazine’s Langdon Winner recalled:

    “The closest Western Civilization has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815 was the week the Sgt. Pepper album was released. In every city in Europe and America the radio stations played… and everyone listened.”

    Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said:

    “Not once does the diversity seem forced. After Sgt. Pepper, there were no rules to follow – rock and pop bands could try anything, for better or worse.”

    Author Jonathan Gould wrote that Sgt. Pepper was:

    “The catalyst for an explosion of mass enthusiasm for album-formatted rock that would revolutionize both the aesthetics and the economics of the record business in ways that far out-stripped the earlier pop explosions triggered by the Elvis phenomenon of 1956 and the Beatlemania phenomenon of 1963.”

     

    MORE Good News on this Day:

    • A Great Jubilee Day was held in Trumbull, Connecticut to celebrate the end of the American Revolution (1783)
    • Jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis, one of the most influential and innovative musicians of the 20th century, who broke long-held musical rules and helped popularize jazz fusion with his 4-time platinum 1959 album, Kind of Blue, was born (1926)
    • English actress Helena Bonham Carter, 52, (The King’s Speech, Fight Club, Harry Potter), was born (1966)
    • British Guiana gains independence, becoming Guyana (1966)
    • The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty was signed by the United States (Nixon) and the Soviet Union (Brezhnev), which was in force for thirty years — until 2002 when the US withdrew to pursue a Missile Defense System (1972)
    • Faced with Mott The Hoople splitting up, David Bowie offered the band two of his new songs, Suffragette City (which they turned down), and All The Young Dudes, which became a huge hit for the group—rising to No.3 in the UK and into the Top 40 in the US (1972)
    • The Edgar Winter Group went to No.1 on the US singles chart with Frankenstein, with Winter playing a protracted solo with a then-innovative synthesizer, becoming the first person ever to strap a keyboard instrument around his neck (1973)
    • For the first time ever the Top five positions on the US singles chart were held by female artists; Madonna was at No.1 with ‘Vogue’, Heart at No.2, Sinead O’Connor at No.3, and Wilson Phillips and Janet Jackson at 4 and 5. (1990)
    • Federal judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated to be the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama (2009)

    66 years ago today The Silent World (Le Monde du Silence), the French documentary co-directed by famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and a young filmmaker, Louis Malle, was released.

    Noted as one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color, it won the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival, the only documentary to do so for nearly 50 years. WATCH the mesmerizing opening shot sequence, and more… (1956)

    And, 104 years ago today, the Democratic Republic of Georgia was established after the collapse of the Russian empire.

    Tbilisi_Georgia_—_View_of_Tbilisi-cc-Levan Gokadze
    Tbilisi by Levan Gokadze, CC license

    The three years of Georgian independence was a catalyst for the development of a national feeling among the people, a major factor that made the country one of the most active “independist” forces within the Soviet Union. In the post-Soviet era the first President of Georgia was democratically elected on this day in 1991, National Independence Day. (1918)

    On this day, 102 years ago the singer–songwriter and actress Peggy Lee was born in North Dakota. You might know her sultry voice from her 1958 hit single Fever, but she was also nominated for 12 Grammy Awards, including Best Contemporary Vocal Performance for her 1969 hit Is That All There Is. You may also know her as the voice of the Siamese Cats in Disneys Lady and The Tramp.

    Peggy Lee in 1950

    From jazz to pop, she worked with Benny Goodman, Randy Newman, and Quincy Jones in a career spanning six decades. Lee created a sophisticated persona that leant itself well to acting, but she was also a composer, writing music for films, and recording conceptual albums combining poetry and music. WATCH a video of Fever… (1920–2002)

     

    And 24 years ago today, Australia held its first “National Sorry Day” with reconciliation events nationwide attended by over a million people. They gathered to honor the continent’s mistreated indigenous population, particularly the children who were taken from their homes. The government officially expressed sincere regret for the injustices suffered in past generations, and “for the hurt and trauma that many indigenous people continue to feel as a consequence of those practices.” (1998)

    And, on this day, in 1907, John Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa. Nicknamed “The Duke,” Marion Robert Morrison became an instant star after his role in John Ford’s 1939 film, Stagecoach.

    He went on to play the hero in 142 pictures, and won the Oscar for Best Actor for True Grit (1969). His voice, swagger, and charisma in action films and westerns made him a major box office draw for thirty years. Wayne’s other well-known Western roles include: a cattleman driving his herd in Red River (1948), a Civil War veteran whose young niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches in The Searchers (1956), and a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer for a woman’s hand in marriage in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He is also remembered for his roles in The Quiet Man (1952), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Longest Day (1962). In his final screen performance, in The Shootist, he played an aging gunfighter battling cancer — three years before his own death in 1979 from stomach cancer at age 72.

    Manchester United Football Club, YouTube

    And, 22 years ago today, the Manchester United Football Club completed an unprecedented Treble—a triple-trophy year, winning the English Premier League, the FA Cup, and the European UEFA Champions League, becoming the first and only English club to achieve the feat. After winning no titles the previous year, 1998-99 became the most successful season in the club’s 117 year history. During the campaign, ‘Man United’ lost only five times—and had a run of 33 games unbeaten.

    The team’s never-say-die attitude, along with David Beckham’s bending kicks, were keys to their success—and a dramatic comeback in the Champions League final. True to their season-long tradition of thriving in difficult situations, on May 26, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær each scored in injury time to overturn Bayern Munich’s first-half lead to win 2-1. Tens of thousands of fans lined the streets of Manchester to welcome home the team that instantly became the world’s richest football club, and the most valuable sporting brand worldwide. (1999) WATCH the 20-year tribute…

     

    SHARE the Milestones, Memories, and Music…



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    Russian climate action and research is collateral damage in Putin’s war on Ukraine


    Polluting companies are using sanctions as a pretext to roll back climate regulation, while Russian scientists cannot share critical equipment and data

    As the European Union moves closer to an embargo deal on Russian oil, there is much talk about the impact of war-related sanctions on Europe’s energy transition and the world’s decarbonisation efforts.

    But the sanctions also have strong implications for Russia’s already slow and rather unsure green transition, be it the modernisation of its energy sector or climate science.

    What Russia does or does not do matters for the rest of us: the world’s eleventh-largest economy also happens to be the fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the second-largest crude oil exporter, and the world’s largest gas exporter.

    The Russian economy is strongly dependent on the exploitation of energy-intensive industries and fossil fuels, with oil and gas alone accounting for 35-40% of the federal budget revenue in recent years. Hydrocarbons fuel Russia’s elite’s wealth and power but are also framed as a source of energy security and welfare for the country’s citizens.

    Until recently, Russia had long been seen as a country with a lacklustre position in international climate negotiations, at best a passive player and at worst an active saboteur of worldwide ambition.

    However, things have changed over the past years, most notably from November 2021 when its government adopted a framework climate legislation with a net-zero target by 2060. That year alone also saw it introduce a greenhouse gas emission reporting system for large emitters, adoption of its first national Climate Adaptation Plan and initiation of a carbon-trading experiment in its remote far Eastern region aimed at reaching carbon neutrality by 2025.

    The Russian island region of Sakhalin (Pic: Angelina Davydova)

    Some will argue the impulse for these initiatives comes from outside the country. For example, as part of the European Union’s Green Deal package, the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is set to place a carbon price on imports entering the European single market from non-EU countries such as Russia from 2026. The border tariff, which would see imports covered by carbon pricing equivalent to Europe’s carbon market, the emissions trading system, has been credited with inspiring the Russian government and industry to finally take climate change seriously.

    However, with every passing day of war these external incentives lose traction, making Russia’s domestic climate policy more uncertain than ever.

    On the one hand, it would be mistaken to claim all that is left of Russia’s climate policy is a tabula rasa. The truth is, today’s policy programmes and “green” business strategies do not fully hinge on foreign pressure. Although Russia’s parliament, the Duma, debated leaving the Paris Agreement earlier this week, there remains political will to uphold it.

    The chairman of the Duma’s Committee on Ecology, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Vyacheslav Fetisov, for example, has said: “Russia does not plan to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement [and] is not going to abandon the implementation of this most important environmental international legal instrument.”

    State agencies, companies, think tanks and other institutions that have developed “green” strategies over the past years, insist on their enduring relevance for the global fight against climate change, but also climate impacts on Russia and future trade prospects.

    The climate head of WWF Russia, Aleksey Kokorin, has even voiced optimism that gas surpluses resulting from sanctions could be used to substitute the country’s coal and prompt the country’s greenhouse gas emissions to drop.

    Ukraine builds legal case against Russia for environmental damage

    And yet, it is undeniable that the economic crisis, sanctions and strengthened anti-Western rhetoric brought on by the war have made it more difficult to pursue decarbonisation plans. Politicians and lobbyists who had already opposed decarbonisation efforts have seized the moment to demand a withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.

    Many businesses are taking advantage of the situation to pressure the government to roll back environmental regulation in a bid to help them cope with harsher economic circumstances, with recent bills already pointing in this direction.

    More specifically, there have been reports of talks between the government and energy companies over the possibility of relaxing greenhouse gas emission reporting and verification. For example, one of the country’s biggest oil suppliers, Lukoil, has pushed the government to scrap a legislation compelling large energy companies to verify their reporting on greenhouse gas emissions with an independent company starting from 1 January 2023.

    Import restrictions on technology, the dwindling of foreign capital sources and the freezing of international programmes have further stalled plans to modernise the country’s old industries. Russia’s fledging renewables sector has also taken a hit, with some international investors (including Vestas, Fortum and ENEL) halting their plans in Russia or withdrawing from the country completely.

    This has prompted politicians, businesspeople, and scientists to discuss alternatives to foreign technology and domestic options to finance the energy transition.

    African nations’ dash for gas exposes division at the UN and ‘hypocrisy’ in Europe

    Moreover, the sanctions have taken a serious toll on climate science in Russia, which matters to those who implement practical decarbonisation measures in Russia, but also to the global science community.

    It is particularly jarring in relation to other instances in Russian history when scientists succeeded in overcoming political tensions with the West. Despite the Cold War, climate scientists managed to advance global climate science within the 1972 US-USSR environmental agreement enabling the exchange of data, equipment and joint publications.

    US climatologist Alan D Hecht (1944-2019) and the USSR’s Mikhail I Budyko (1920-2001) discussing their joint publication on climate change in 1989
    (Pic: Alan D. Hecht, Author provided)

    In contrast, governments and science bodies worldwide have now sanctioned Russian research institutions. Meanwhile, the EU has suspended Russia’s participation in its flagship research programme Horizon Europe and national research councils of several European states paused collaborations with Russia.

    Research areas that rely on foreign equipment are particularly affected. For instance, Germany’s Max Planck Institute (MPI) has received a 64-page list with electronic devices that the EU forbids scientists to share with Russian colleagues on the grounds they could be used for military purposes.

    In early February, the Russian government announced plans to invest 5.9 billion roubles (at the time of writing, approximately $92 million) into climate and decarbonisation research, and create Russia’s own system to track carbon emissions.

    A research station on the Island of Samoylov, northeastern Siberia (Pic: Anne Morgenstern/Alfred-Wegener Institute)

    However, Alexander Chernokulsky, a climatologist from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, told us the future of the project is unclear in the absence of foreign equipment.

    Similarly, for years Russian and German scientists have been measuring CO2 concentration changes in the atmosphere from a tall tower observatory, ZOTTO, in the southwest Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, considered a “hot spot” because of its potential for large carbon storage or leak. Here again, in an e-mail exchange with us, MPI scientist Sönke Zaehle has warned that the medium- and long-term future of the station are at risk from a lack of maintenance support from the German side.

    Research in the Arctic is particularly crucial for our understanding of climate change. At least a dozen international collaborations with Russia have been stalled, here, too. The maintenance of long-term measuring systems crucial for climate modelling poses particular concerns. “There is this fear of a blind spot, no matter what research topic in the Arctic you approach,” Anne Morgenstern, a coordinator of the German Alfred Wegener Institute’s scientific cooperation with Russia, told us.

    A weather station in Russia’s northernmost region, Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia (Pic: Peter Prokosch)

    Climate scientists in Russia have also lost access to the Climate Data Store, which provides a single point of access to a wide range of climate datasets for past, present and future climates, including satellite observations, in-situ measurements, climate model projections and seasonal forecasts.

    They can no longer either access supercomputers based in other countries, and the departure of technology companies such as Intel will eventually lead to a deterioration of computing capacities in general, according to Evgeny Volodin, a climate modeller at the Institute of Computational Mathematics at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

    Environmental concerns are at risk of being laid aside during wartime. However, as we stand at a point in earth history at which opportunities to mitigate climate catastrophe are fading, we believe subordinating climate issues to the dictates and temporalities of war is not an option. Attempts to stop the war have to stand alongside efforts to advance transnational climate cooperation and action, despite the damages and dilemmas caused by Russia’s war.

    Ambitious international climate agendas, including phasing out oil and gas production as quickly as possible, are crucial to increase pressure on the fossil fuel industry and the war machine, and to support those forces within Russia that are still holding on to decarbonisation.

    Katja Doose is a senior researcher at the University of Fribourg and Alexander Vorbrugg is a geographer at Université de Berne.

    Angelina Davydova, is an environmental and climate journalist. She is currently a fellow of the Berlin-based Media in Cooperation and Transition (MICT) programme and a coordinator with N-ost, a network for cross-border journalism.The Conversation

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

    Megan Darby



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    Good News on this Day in History


    45 years ago today, the Chinese government announced the end of a decades-long ban on the works of William Shakespeare, effectively ending the Cultural Revolution—the most destructive socio-political movement in history. Despite Mao Zedong’s ban on the Bard, Shakespeare has been beloved by the Chinese ever since the late 19th century. His plays have been interpreted strictly as philosophy as well as drama, and reproductions of his stories under the backdrop of China have appeared, like Akira Kurasawa did for Samurai films, in Chinese martial arts cinema. READ more about China’s love affair with the bard… (1971)

    Zhu Shenghao’s translations of Shakespeare – Shakespeare.org

    Zhu Shenghao (1912-1944) was a Shakespearian scholar in China, who, despite living his whole live in poverty and illness, translated 31 of Shakespeare’s works into Mandarin. His manuscripts were destroyed twice in the Sino-Japanese War. But he remade them all after arriving in Taiwan.

    Shakespeare was always in a curious state of limbo following the communist takeover. On the one hand, Karl Marx revered Shakespeare, and so originally the Maoists disseminated his works throughout the country. But overtime the belief that only a strong Chinese culture could counter malign foreign influences saw Mao ban the plays, which were said to be selling like fresh buns the morning before the ban was to be enacted.

    This year, with cooperation and assistance from the Shakespeare Birth Trust of Stratford-upon-Avon, a 1:1 scale model of the house in which the bard was born, and the one where he probably died, will be finished in the city of Fuzhou which recently decided by government edict it was to be the Shakespearean heart of all China.

    MORE Good News on this Day:

    • Delegates convened a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to write a new Constitution for the United States, with George Washington presiding (1787)
    • Paul Weller, the British singer-songwriter who shot to fame as a member of the The Jam and Style Council (try the jazzy Cafe Bleu) from the 70s and 80s, was born (1958)
    • The Organization of African Unity was established in Ethiopia giving 32 nations a united voice for the first time in Africa’s history (1963)
    • Erik Weihenmayer, 32, of Boulder, Colorado, became the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest (2001)
    • Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, premiered in Los Angeles, the first superhero film directed by a woman—Patty Jenkins (2017)

     

    And, 45 years ago today, Star Wars, the film that heralded a new era of special effects for fantasy-adventure movies, was released. Created by George Lucas, the Star Wars franchise became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon through the merchandising of charismatic saga.  The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won 7, including Best Original Score, by John Williams. Oscar nods included: Alec Guinness nominated for Actor in a Supporting Role, George Lucas for Director; other nominations for Makeup; Sound Editing; Screenplay; and Best Picture. The film won the award for: Art Direction-Set Decoration, Costume Design, Film Editing, Sound (Mixing), Visual Effects, and a Special Achievement Award for its Alien, Creature and Robot Voices. (1977)

    And, 87 years ago today, in the waning days of his career, a 40-year-old Babe Ruth had been dragging down his team with lousy fielding, sluggish running, and spotty hitting. This day, however, he hit three monster home runs in a single game. The next week he retired.

    babe_ruth

    He proved himself the ‘Sultan of Swat‘ when he hit a ball so perfectly it soared over the mammoth right-field roof of Forbes Field, a feat no one else had ever achieved — a “prodigious drive” estimated at more than 500 feet. It was his last home run. It topped his lifetime tally at 714 and set a baseball record that stood for 39 years. (1935)

    Also on this day, 69 years ago, the first public television station in the U.S. officially began broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston in Texas.

    Established by Dr. John C. Schwarzwalder, a professor in the Radio-Television Department, it was the first station to broadcast under an educational non-profit license in the country. As an NET member station (National Educational Television), which eventually merged into PBS, the station offered televised college credit classes. Running 15 hours weekly, most courses aired at night to serve students who worked during the day. (1953)

     

    87 years ago today, a black college athlete at Ohio State University set three world records and tied another in “the greatest 45 minutes ever in sports.” At the Big Ten Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Jesse Owens ran and jumped into track and field immortality by equaling the world record for the 100-yard dash, and breaking the records in the 220-yard sprint, the 220-yard low hurdles, and the long jump (with a length unmatched for a quarter century).

    Owens, the Alabama native who became a four-time gold medalist the following year at the Olympic Games—beating Hitler’s best track stars in Berlin—is often ranked one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century. WATCH a short clip to see why no one could duplicate his feat today… (1935)

    And, this 1-minute clip, from the same documentary…

     

    And, on this day in 1969, Midnight Cowboy premiered in theaters, starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. It won a plethora of awards including Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (John Schlesinger), and Best Adapted Screenplay. The depressing plot centers around a Texan ‘cowboy’ who travels to New York City and ends up homeless with an ailing con man (Hoffman) teaching him the how to become a hustler.

    (You might have heard a pedestrian call out in a Bronx accent if a car gets in their way, the now-famous expression from the movie, “Hey, I’m walkin’, here!”)

    Midnight Cowboy, notable as the only X-rated film ever to win the Best Picture Oscar, is often listed in the top 100 greatest films of all time. Fred Neil’s theme song Everybody’s Talkin’ won a Grammy Award for vocalist Harry Nilsson. WATCH the trailer…

     

    61 years ago today, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of the U.S. Congress his goal to initiate a project “to put a man on the Moon”—and return him safely to Earth—before the end of the decade.

    NASA was ramped-up with funding to launch the Apollo program, and Kennedy’s goal was achieved months before the deadline, on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped down into the lunar dirt. Though the Democratic president never lived to see the historic moon landing, because he was assassinated two years later, Kennedy’s leadership and long-term vision changed NASA in fundamental, enduring ways.

    WATCH his famous answer to ‘why go to the moon?’… (1961)

    SHARE the Milestones, Memories, and Music…



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    African nations’ dash for gas exposes division at the UN and ‘hypocrisy’ in Europe


    The UN chief claims it is “madness” to check out for far more fossil fuels, when major Nigerian UN officials support African leaders’ fuel-fuelled improvement ideas

    African leaders’ sprint for gasoline is raising tensions at the top rated of the UN and exposing Europe’s conflicted tactic to the fuel.

    Across Africa, gasoline is at the coronary heart of a development compared to decarbonisation challenge.

    “We may well see in gas a transitional resource of electricity with certainly much less emissions,” Egypt’s foreign minister and Cop27 president Sameh Shoukry instructed the Affiliated Press in Davos on Monday.

    What that transition need to appear like dominated talks at the Sustainable Electricity for All (SE4All) forum held in Kigali, Rwanda, past 7 days.

    “We require to strategy now to be able to energy Africa’s foreseeable future industries sustainably but devoid of slowing down our improvement,” stated host Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame.

    For ministers of at least 10 African nations, the reply lies in gasoline.

    In a seven-level communique, they identified as on the global local community to “support Africa in the deployment of gas as a transition gas and the extensive-phrase displacement of gasoline by renewable energy and eco-friendly hydrogen for industrial advancement, if economically and technically sustainable”.

    This, they claimed, would assist “address progress gaps” and “put Africa on a pathway to financial prosperity and web zero”.

    The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda, and Zimbabwe signed on to the statement.

    Island states back again Vanuatu’s quest for climate justice at the UN

    African nations’ hunger for exploiting untouched gasoline reserves contradicts UN secretary general António Guterres’ recurring simply call for phasing out fossil fuels, like fuel.

    He explained investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure as “moral and financial madness” subsequent the publication of the hottest Intergovernmental Panel on Local climate Improve report which confirmed that expanding coal, oil and gasoline manufacturing places global climate ambitions at danger.

    But African leaders have located sympathy from significant-driven Nigerian women of all ages at the UN: Guterres’ deputy and former ecosystem minister Amina Mohammed and head of SE4All Damilola Ogunbiyi.

    Ogunbiyi is accountable for offering on a 2030 sustainable enhancement objective for anyone to have obtain to reasonably priced, dependable and sustainable strength. She joined SE4All at the start off of 2020 with a company belief on the problem.

    “Gas, for me, in Africa, in all probability has to be component of the equation for a bit for a longer period as a transitionary gas mainly because gas also affects cooking. I’m listed here in New York cooking with gasoline. It’s heading to be quite bizarre to notify the entire of Africa ‘don’t use gasoline mainly because it’s a fossil [fuel] and go on making use of fuel wood’,” she instructed the BBC.

    “If persons that really do not have electric power in Africa acquired driven by gasoline right now, it would improve Africa’s… emissions by 2-4%. That’s what we’re talking about. So it’s not reasonable to preserve identifying Africa’s fossils as the trouble,” she included, defending fuel infrastructure assignments on the continent.

    A statement on the SE4All web page, revealed next her appointment, claims the organisation “recognises that interim methods, like purely natural gas and liquefied petroleum fuel, will have to be deployed urgently in some options exactly where they can very best minimize human suffering and help you save lives”.

    Mohammed has been significantly less vocal on the difficulty but supports gasoline-run development at the rear of the scenes, sources near to the UN have advised Weather House. She did not answer to a request for comment.

    Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Electrical power for All, speaking at the organisation’s forum in Kigali, Rwanda (Picture: Rwanda’s ministry of enviornment/Flickr)

    An estimated 90 million persons are without electricity in Nigeria by itself, in accordance to 2019 information. Throughout Africa, 592 million men and women lack access to electrical energy. The Covid-19 pandemic led to a reversal of some of the before gains in strength access.

    Ovigwe Eguegu, a Nigerian policy adviser at consultancy Progress Reimagined, instructed Local climate House that forward of a presidential election following calendar year, “the countrywide discourse is not even about fuel as a changeover fuel but fairly ‘we want vitality very first and then we can examine if it’s clean’.”

    At the time of the interview, Eguegu’s residence had been 7 hours with out electrical power. Numerous middle-class Nigerian homes use polluting diesel generators as backup for repeated grid outages.

    “No candidate can arrive to Nigeria and argue in opposition to gas,” stated Eguegu, including that it would be “shocking” if Nigerians in higher-driven UN work opportunities didn’t assistance fuel as aspect of the option.

    A SE4All spokesperson included that the organisation “strongly supports” achieving world net zero emissions by 2050 and fuel that displaces diesel use would want to be phased out from 2030.

    “If we want these international locations to go absent from gasoline sooner, then they will require a fantastic deal of further aid, notably finance and technical assist, from the global north,” they added.

    Extinction Rise up evokes Shell security expert to bounce ship

    Youba Sokona, of Mali, a vice chair of the IPCC and special advisor for Sustainable Improvement at the South Centre, explained gas experienced grow to be “dilemma” for the African continent. When recent renewable deployment isn’t sufficient to electricity the continent’s industrialisation, creating new gasoline infrastructure pitfalls leaving them stranded, he discussed.

    “The dilemma is will Africa jumpstart electrifying its development or will it commit in fossil with all various threats affiliated it will have to experience?”

    For local weather campaigners the highway forward is obvious. These “arguments for gas exploration and gasoline-fired electrical power infrastructure in Africa are robbing us of essential time to change to clear power,” Ugandan youth activist Vanessa Nakate wrote in Al-Jazeera in advance of the SE4All summit.

    “We need to have huge financial investment from the world north in clean strength in Africa. Climate justice for Africa does not mean following the mistakes of the wealthy nations who received us into this crisis,” she told Weather Home.

    In point, SE4All identifies off-grid renewable options these kinds of as photo voltaic mini-grids as the most inexpensive, fastest and most sustainable way to electrify Africa. But oil and gasoline companies have continued to pitched gasoline as a trustworthy and cleaner alternate to coal than can aid developing countries’ economic development.

    And arguments about vitality entry obscure the truth that much of the gasoline output under development in Africa is destined for export. That contains to European international locations that communicate hard on fossil fuels, however due to the fact Russia invaded Ukraine have been scrambling to secure gas provides from other sources.

    Remark: Russia’s war is no excuse for G7 ministers to duck their local weather tasks

    On the very first cease of an African tour on Sunday, chancellor Olaf Scholz claimed Germany would “intensively” operate to guidance offshore gas production in Senegal – a task developed by BP and embroiled in a corruption scandal.

    Senegalese president Macky Sall said he was “dancing with joy” at the prospect of cooperation with Germany. LNG production and export to Europe “is an difficulty that is actually close to our hearts,” he explained.

    Germany’s support for Senegal’s fuel exploitation appears to violate a Cop26 pledge signed by Berlin and much more than 30 other nations around the world to finish international public finance for unabated fossil fuels, together with gas, by the conclude of this 12 months – a pledge that angered West African leaders.

    A local climate ministry spokesperson insisted Germany stood by its dedication.

    But these blended messages have led to fresh new accusations of European hypocrisy. “If Europe is using gas as a changeover gas or for political calculations, why should not we?,” requested Eguegu.

    Aki Kachi, of the New Climate Institute, explained to Local climate Household the prospect of a deal “undermines Germany’s global trustworthiness to dwell up to its promises”. Commencing on Wednesday, Germany is web hosting a G7 conference of climate ministers, where ending general public finance for fossil fuels is on the desk.

    “These European nations know that fossil fuels like gas are not the foreseeable future and when they have their renewables up to speed, they will fall these new fuel agreements,” Mohamed Adow, director of Electric power Shift Africa, informed Weather Dwelling.

    “For Africa, it would be idiotic to devote our small methods to develop gas production just to aid Europe in the shorter term when we could be investing in our possess sustainable renewable vitality,” he reported.

    Chloé Farand



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