Climate and Environment

Deadly Portugal wildfires force new evacuations

  • Lisbon has upped fire prevention funding ten-fold and doubled the budget to fight wildfires since deadly blazes in 2017 claimed hundreds of lives.
  • Deadly wildfires raging in Portugal have forced more people to evacuate their homes as crews battled dozens of blazes on Wednesday in the nation's north.
  • Lisbon has upped fire prevention funding ten-fold and doubled the budget to fight wildfires since deadly blazes in 2017 claimed hundreds of lives.
Deadly wildfires raging in Portugal have forced more people to evacuate their homes as crews battled dozens of blazes on Wednesday in the nation's north.
Stifling heat and strong winds have fanned a spate of forest fires across the north and centre of the country that have killed seven people dead since the weekend.
Civil protection authorities listed 42 active fires on its website on Wednesday and said they had mobilised around 3,900 firefighters and over 1,000 vehicles.
In the Gondomar municipality, just outside Porto, authorities carried out more evacuations on Tuesday night.
Firefighters battling blazes in Arouca in the hard-hit Aveiro region told local media outlets the situation there was "uncontrollable".
Around 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) of vegetation have burned in the region, south of Porto, since Monday, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (Effis).
A total of 15 separate fires have passed the 1,000-hectare threshold since the fires began over the weekend, Effis data also showed.
Authorities in Aveiro said Tuesday evening that firefighters were on the verge of bringing one group of fires that had spread across a 100-kilometre (60-mile) perimeter under control.
Three firefighters died on Tuesday when their vehicle was trapped by the flames, civil protection authorities said, bringing the fire-related toll up to seven, with some 50 injured.
A 28-year-old Brazilian who worked for a forestry company died after he become trapped by the flames as he tried to collect some times. Two others suffered heart attacks and a volunteer firefighter died while taking a break from battling the flames.
Lisbon has upped fire prevention funding ten-fold and doubled the budget to fight wildfires since deadly blazes in 2017 claimed hundreds of lives.
The Iberian peninsula is particularly vulnerable to global warming, with heatwaves and drought exposing the region to blazes.
tsc/jc/jm

synthetics

How single-use plastic still rules the world

BY AFP BUREAUX

  • Thailand produces two million tons of plastic waste a year, according to the country's Pollution Control Department. 
  • Each year the world produces around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste, much of it discarded after just a few minutes of use.
  • Thailand produces two million tons of plastic waste a year, according to the country's Pollution Control Department. 
Each year the world produces around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste, much of it discarded after just a few minutes of use.
Negotiators hope to reach the world's first treaty on plastic pollution this year, but across five very different countries, AFP found single-use plastic remains hugely popular as a cheap and convenient choice, illustrating the challenges ahead:
Bangkok
On a Bangkok street lined with food vendors, customers line up for Maliwan's famed traditional sweets.
Steamed layer cakes -- green with pandan leaf or blue with butterfly pea -- sit in clear plastic bags alongside rows of taro pudding in plastic boxes.
Each day, the 40-year-old business uses at least two kilos of single-use plastic.
"Plastic is easy, convenient and cheap," said 44-year-old owner Watchararas Tamrongpattarakit.
Banana leaves used to be standard, but they are increasingly expensive and hard to source.
They are also onerous to use because each one must be cleaned and checked for tears.
It "isn't practical for our pace of sales", said Watchararas.
Thailand started limiting single-use plastic before the pandemic, asking major retailers to stop handing out bags for free.
But the policy has largely fallen by the wayside, with little uptake among the country's street food vendors.
Thailand produces two million tons of plastic waste a year, according to the country's Pollution Control Department. 
The World Bank estimates 11 percent goes uncollected, and is burned, disposed of on land or leaks into rivers and the ocean.
Watchararas tries to consolidate purchases into fewer bags and said some customers bring their own reusable containers and totes.
But Radeerut Sakulpongpaisal, a Maliwan customer for 30 years, said she finds plastic "convenient".
"I also understand the environmental impact," the bank worker said.
But "it's probably easier for both the shop and the customers".
Lagos
In the Obalende market at the heart of Nigeria's economic capital Lagos, emptied water sachets litter the ground.
Each day, Lisebeth Ajayi watches dozens of customers use their teeth to tear open the bags of "pure water" and drink.
"They don't have the money to buy the bottle water, that's why they do the pure water," said the 58-year-old, who sells bottles and bags of water, soap and sponges.
Two 500-millilitre sachets sell for between 50 to 250 naira (3-15 US cents), compared to 250-300 naira for a 750-ml bottle.
Since they appeared in the 1990s, water sachets have become a major pollutant across much of Africa, but they remain popular for drinking, cooking and even washing.
Around 200 firms produce the sachets in Lagos, and several hundred more recycle plastic, but supply vastly outstrips capacity in a country with few public wastebins and little environmental education.
Lagos banned single-use plastic in January, but with little impact so far.
The United Nations estimates up to 60 million water sachets are discarded across Nigeria every day.
Rio
Each day, vendors walk the sands of some of Rio de Janeiro's most beautiful beaches, lugging metal containers filled with the tea-like drink mate.
The iced beverage, infused with fruit juice, is dispensed into plastic cups for eager sun worshippers dotted along the seafront.
"Drinking mate is part of Rio de Janeiro's culture," explained Arthur Jorge da Silva, 47, as he scouted for customers.
He acknowledged the environmental impacts of his towers of plastic cups, in a country ranked the fourth-biggest producer of plastic waste in 2019.
But "it's complicated" to find affordable alternatives, he told AFP.
The tanned salesman said mate vendors on the beach had used plastic for as long as he could remember.
He pays a dollar for a tower of 20 cups and charges customers $1.80 for each drink.
Bins along Rio's beaches receive about 130 tons of waste a day, but plastic is not separated, and just three percent of Brazil's waste is recycled annually.
Evelyn Talavera, 24, said she does her best to clean up when leaving the beach.
"We have to take care of our planet, throw the garbage away, keep the environment clean."
Plastic straws have been banned in Rio's restaurants and bars since 2018, and shops are no longer required to offer free plastic bags -- though many still do.
Congress is also considering legislation that would ban all single-use plastic.
Paris
In France, single-use plastic has been banned since 2016, but while items like straws and plastic cutlery have disappeared, plastic bags remain stubbornly common.
At Paris' Aligre market, stalls are piled with fruit, vegetables and stacks of bags ready to be handed out.
Most are stamped "reusable and 100-percent recyclable", and some are described as compostable or produced from natural materials.
But experts have cast doubt on the environmental relevance of some of these claims.
Vendor Laurent Benacer gets through a 24-euro ($26) box of 2,000 bags each week.
"In Paris, everyone asks for a bag," he told AFP.
"I'd stopped, but my neighbours continued, so I had to restart."
There are alternatives like paper bags, but some customers are simply not convinced.
"Plastic bags remain practical, so everything doesn't spill everywhere," insisted 80-year-old customer Catherine Sale.
Dubai
At the Allo Beirut restaurant in Dubai, plastic containers are piled high, waiting to be filled and delivered across the city.
"We receive more than 1,200 orders a day," said delivery manager Mohammed Chanane.
"We use plastic boxes because they are more airtight, and better preserve the food," he said.
With few pedestrians and an often-scorching climate, many of Dubai's 3.7 million residents rely on delivery for everything from petrol to coffee.
Residents of the United Arab Emirates have one of the highest volumes of waste per capita in the world.
And single-use plastic accounts for 40 percent of all plastic used in the country.
Since June, single-use plastic bags and several similar items have been banned. Polystyrene containers will follow next year.
Allo Beirut is considering using cardboard containers, a move customer Youmna Asmar would welcome.
She admitted horror at the build-up of plastic in her bins after a weekend of family orders. 
"I say to myself, if all of us are doing this, it's a lot."
burs/sah/sco/fg

Thailand

Six million children in SE Asia affected by Yagi disaster: UNICEF

  • Thailand reported three more deaths on Wednesday, taking the toll in the kingdom to 18, with a total of 537 fatalities now confirmed across the region.
  • Deadly floods and landslides triggered by Typhoon Yagi have affected nearly six million children across Southeast Asia, the UN said Wednesday, as the death toll from the disaster rose.
  • Thailand reported three more deaths on Wednesday, taking the toll in the kingdom to 18, with a total of 537 fatalities now confirmed across the region.
Deadly floods and landslides triggered by Typhoon Yagi have affected nearly six million children across Southeast Asia, the UN said Wednesday, as the death toll from the disaster rose.
Typhoon Yagi brought powerful winds and torrential rainfall to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar when it swept across the region almost two weeks ago.
Thailand reported three more deaths on Wednesday, taking the toll in the kingdom to 18, with a total of 537 fatalities now confirmed across the region.
Six million children have been affected by Yagi, United Nations children's agency UNICEF said in a statement, with access to clean water, education, healthcare, food and shelter all compromised. 
"The most vulnerable children and families are facing the most devastating consequences of the destruction left behind by Typhoon Yagi," said June Kunugi, UNICEF regional director for East Asia and Pacific.
In Vietnam, about three million people are facing the risk of disease due to a lack of safe drinking water and sanitation, UNICEF said. 
Almost 400,000 people have been forced from their homes by floods in Myanmar, piling misery on a population already struggling with more than three years of war between the military and armed groups opposed to its rule.
Yagi worsened an "already dire humanitarian situation" in Myanmar, said UNICEF, and "pushed... already marginalised communities into deeper crisis".
More than 100 flood victims near the capital Naypyidaw needed hospital treatment for food poisoning after eating donated meals on Tuesday, the junta said.
The UN's World Food Programme said Wednesday it would launch an emergency response in Myanmar this week, distributing a one-month ration of emergency food to up to half a million people.
Climate change and warming oceans, driven by human activities, are making extreme weather events like Typhoon Yagi more frequent and severe.
Overlapping climate and humanitarian hazards disproportionately affect children in East Asia and the Pacific, where they are six times more likely than their grandparents to be affected, according to UNICEF.
burs-pdw/sco

environment

'End of an era': UK to shut last coal-fired power plant

BY CLéMENT ZAMPA

  • - 'End of an era' - In recent years, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, which had the potential to power two million homes, has been used only when big spikes in electricity use were expected, such as during a cold snap in 2022 or the 2023 heatwave.
  • Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station has dominated the landscape of the English East Midlands for nearly 60 years, looming over the small town of the same name and a landmark on the M1 motorway bisecting Derby and Nottingham.
  • - 'End of an era' - In recent years, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, which had the potential to power two million homes, has been used only when big spikes in electricity use were expected, such as during a cold snap in 2022 or the 2023 heatwave.
Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station has dominated the landscape of the English East Midlands for nearly 60 years, looming over the small town of the same name and a landmark on the M1 motorway bisecting Derby and Nottingham.
At the mainline railway station serving the nearby East Midlands Airport, its giant cooling towers rise up seemingly within touching distance of the track and platform.
But at the end of this month, the site in central England will close its doors, signalling the end to polluting coal-powered electricity in the UK, in a landmark first for any G7 nation.
"It'll seem very strange because it has always been there," said David Reynolds, a 74-year-old retiree who saw the site being built as a child before it began operations in 1967.
"When I was younger you could go down certain parts and you saw nothing but coal pits," he told AFP.

Energy transition

Coal has played a vital part in British economic history, powering the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries that made the country a global superpower, and creating London's infamous choking smog.
Even into the 1980s, it still represented 70 percent of the country's electricity mix before its share declined in the 1990s. 
In the last decade the fall has been even sharper, slumping to 38 percent in 2013, 5.0 percent in 2018 then just 1.0 percent last year.
In 2015, the then Conservative government said that it intended to shut all coal-fired power stations by 2025 to reduce carbon emissions.
Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think-tank, said the UK's 2030 clean-energy target was "very ambitious".
But she added: "It sends a very strong message that the UK is taking climate change as a matter of great importance and also that this is only the first step."
By last year, natural gas represented a third of the UK's electricity production, while a quarter came from wind power and 13 percent from nuclear power, according to electricity operator National Grid ESO.
"The UK managed to phase coal out so quickly largely through a combination of economics and then regulations," Ralston said. 
"So larger power plants like coal plants had regulations put on them because of all the sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxides, all the emissions coming from the plant and that meant that it was no longer economically attractive to invest in those sorts of plants."
The new Labour government launched its flagship green energy plan after its election win in July, with the creation of a publicly owned body to invest in offshore wind, tidal power and nuclear power.
The aim is to make Britain a superpower once more, this time in "clean energy".
As such, Ratcliffe-on-Soar's closure on September 30 is a symbolic step in the UK's ambition to decarbonise electricity by 2030, and become carbon neutral by 2050. 
It will make the country the first in the G7 of rich nations to do away entirely with coal power electricity.
Italy plans to do so by next year, France in 2027, Canada in 2030 and Germany in 2038. Japan and the United States have no set dates. 

'End of an era'

In recent years, Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, which had the potential to power two million homes, has been used only when big spikes in electricity use were expected, such as during a cold snap in 2022 or the 2023 heatwave.
Its last delivery of 1,650 tonnes of coal at the start of this summer barely supplied 500,000 homes for eight hours. 
"It's like the end of a era," said Becky, 25, serving £4 pints behind the bar of the Red Lion pub in nearby Kegworth.
Her father works at the power station and will be out of a job. September 30 is likely to stir up strong emotions for him and the other 350 remaining employees. 
"It's their life," she said.
Nothing remains of the world's first coal-fired power station, which was built by Thomas Edison in central London in 1882, three years after his invention of the electric light bulb.
The same fate is slated for Ratcliffe-on-Soar: the site's German owner, Uniper, said it will be completely dismantled "by the end of the decade".
In its place will be a new development -- a "carbon-free technology and energy hub", the company said.
zap/ajb/phz/gv

flood

Local, foreign firms facing months of recovery in storm-hit Vietnam

BY ALICE PHILIPSON

  • Dozens of factories and warehouses in Haiphong were damaged by Yagi, while some in neighbouring Quang Ninh province expect to have no power until the end of the week, business leaders told AFP. "I can guarantee that (the damage) is more than tens of millions of dollars," said Bruno Jaspaert, chief executive of DEEP C Industrial Zones, home to 178 companies across five industrial areas in Haiphong and Quang Ninh.
  • Factory roofs blown off, products worth millions of dollars destroyed, supply chains disrupted: Typhoon Yagi has had a disastrous impact on local and global companies in northern Vietnam who could take months to recover, business leaders warn.
  • Dozens of factories and warehouses in Haiphong were damaged by Yagi, while some in neighbouring Quang Ninh province expect to have no power until the end of the week, business leaders told AFP. "I can guarantee that (the damage) is more than tens of millions of dollars," said Bruno Jaspaert, chief executive of DEEP C Industrial Zones, home to 178 companies across five industrial areas in Haiphong and Quang Ninh.
Factory roofs blown off, products worth millions of dollars destroyed, supply chains disrupted: Typhoon Yagi has had a disastrous impact on local and global companies in northern Vietnam who could take months to recover, business leaders warn.
The strongest typhoon to hit the country in decades slammed into the important industrial port city of Haiphong before unleashing a torrent of rain across the north, a major production hub for global tech firms such as Samsung and Foxconn.
With climate change making destructive storms like Yagi more likely, the disaster raises questions about Vietnam's push to become an alternative to China in the global supply chain owing to its high susceptibility and lack of mitigating measures. 
Dozens of factories and warehouses in Haiphong were damaged by Yagi, while some in neighbouring Quang Ninh province expect to have no power until the end of the week, business leaders told AFP.
"I can guarantee that (the damage) is more than tens of millions of dollars," said Bruno Jaspaert, chief executive of DEEP C Industrial Zones, home to 178 companies across five industrial areas in Haiphong and Quang Ninh.
"At least 85 percent of our customers have sustained damage."
Many companies lost roofs, while another business saw 3,000 square metres (32,300 square foot) of wall panels blown off in gale-force winds, Jaspaert told AFP.
At the Haiphong DEEP C industrial zones, energy consumption was at two thirds of its usual rate, Jaspaert said, and was not expected to return to normal for another two or three months.
Hong Sun, chairman of the Korean Chamber of Business in Vietnam, told AFP the typhoon had been a "disaster" for his members, with some struggling with staff shortages as flooding stopped workers reaching factories.
Samsung -- Vietnam's largest foreign investor -- said its operations were running as normal, but a warehouse belonging to Korean giant LG Electronics was flooded last week, Hong said, damaging fridges and other home appliances.
LG told AFP it had resumed production of some products shortly after the storm and was making "every effort to swifty recover".

'China plus one' drive

Among businesses from Japan, another major investor, around half reported some kind of damage -- while around 70 said their business had been interrupted or suspended, according to Susumu Yoshida at the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Floods and landslides triggered by Yagi have killed more than 500 people across Southeast Asia -- 292 in Vietnam, according to government figures.
The southeast Asian nation of 100 million people has long been seen as a likely key beneficiary of the decoupling between the United States and the world's second-largest economy.
Investors have expanded into the country as part of a "China plus one" strategy and US President Joe Biden made a high-profile state visit to Hanoi a year ago.
Biden symbolically upgraded diplomatic ties and pushed Vietnam as a solid partner for "friendshoring" -- diversifying manufacturing supply chains away from China towards friendly countries.
Executives from tech behemoth Google, chip makers Intel and GlobalFoundries, and aviation giant Boeing joined Biden for investment talks in Hanoi. 
But Vietnam is one of the world's most vulnerable countries to human-caused climate change, and without adaptation and mitigation measures, the World Bank estimates it will cost about 12 percent to 14.5 percent of GDP a year by 2050.
A study earlier this year said Southeast Asia -- and Haiphong specifically -- was facing "unprecedented threats" from longer and more intense typhoons because of climate change.

'Unprecedented threat'

Vietnam's communist government has set a target to become a high-income country by 2045, but the World Bank says damage caused by climate change poses a "critical obstacle" to this goal. 
Vietnam's government has already said Yagi caused an estimated $1.6 billion in economic losses, and would slow GDP growth in the second half of the year.
But if Vietnam's susceptibility is a worry for investors, most see a lack of climate-safe alternatives.
"Vulnerability due to climate change is subject to any region... (so) it will not affect Japanese investment," said Yoshida.
However, some hope the disaster may incentivise investors to consider renewable energies such as solar that could help shore up supply when storms or floods occur.
Solar and wind power grew tenfold to 13 percent of electricity generation from 2015 to 2023, on par with the global average and exceeding some Southeast Asian peers, according to Ember.
But Vietnam is still heavily reliant on coal, as well as hydropower which is vulnerable in heavy floods.
A shift "would depend on the existing policies for making more solar energy viable", according to Dinita Setyawati, senior electricity policy analyst for Southeast Asia at independent energy think tank Ember.
"These are the opportunities that the Vietnamese government should tap into."
aph/pdw/dan

Colombia

Three activists risking their lives for the planet

BY HERVé BAR IN BOGOTA

  • It helped win him the Goldman Environmental Prize -- the Nobel of environmental defenders -- two years ago.
  • Almost 200 environmental activists were murdered last year, with the toll especially heavy in South America, according to rights group Global Witness.
  • It helped win him the Goldman Environmental Prize -- the Nobel of environmental defenders -- two years ago.
Almost 200 environmental activists were murdered last year, with the toll especially heavy in South America, according to rights group Global Witness.
Here are the stories of three campaigners who have faced violence and repression trying to stop wildcat gold mining in Ecuador, illegal shrimp farming in Indonesia and a controversial oil project in Uganda.
- 'We have a responsibility' - 
Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan has been assaulted, arrested and prosecuted for his activism to protect a national park, but he is unbowed.
"Why be afraid? Why back down? Your home should be defended," the 51-year-old told AFP in Jakarta, where is awaiting a new ruling in legal proceedings against him. 
Born and raised in the Indonesian capital, he "fell in love at first sight" with the remote Karimunjawa Islands National Park off Java on his first visit in 2011 and settled there.
Daniel began to notice the growing impact of illegal shrimp farms, which began to proliferate around 2017.
Run-off from the farms killed off seaweed and forced marine life to move further from shore, impacting the livelihoods of fishing communities, he said.
In 2022, Daniel helped start the #SaveKarimunjawa movement, which pushed for a local zoning law banning the shrimp farms.
But his activism made him a target -- he was threatened, assaulted and put in a chokehold, and fellow environmentalists received death threats.
He was arrested in December 2023 over allegations of hate speech stemming from a Facebook post criticising illegal shrimp farming.
A local court sentenced him in April to seven months behind bars.
The conviction was overturned on appeal but prosecutors took the case to the Supreme Court, insisting he should not be recognised as an environmental activist.
"This is a price that must be paid," Daniel said of the threats and legal battles.
And his activism has had some success, with recent government inspections forcing many illegal operations to shut.
"We have a responsibility to our children, grandchildren and future generations," he said.
"If you give up... you say goodbye to your future."
- 'Hell on Earth' - 
Abdulaziz Bweete grew up in Kawempe, a shanty town in the Ugandan capital Kampala, and saw first-hand the devastating impact of environmental change in poorer communities.
"I have grown up seeing floods around but I had not interested myself in what is causing floods," he told AFP.
It took two things to galvanise the 26-year-old -- going to university, and seeing the Uganda government's response to climate protests. 
Bweete was among a group of student organisers who marched on parliament in July with a petition opposing a multi-billion-dollar oil project that campaigners say will badly affect a delicate environment.
He and several other young activists were arrested, charged with illegal assembly, and held in Kampala's maximum-security Luzira prison until August. 
He told AFP he and fellow protesters were beaten by police.
The activist was previously imprisoned and arrested following rallies in the capital.
"All I can say is prison is a hell on Earth," he said.
"We don't have freedom of protest in this country," he said, glancing around nervously in Kyambogo University's lush campus setting. 
Demonstrations in Uganda -- ruled with an iron fist by President Yoweri Museveni for four decades -- are often met with a heavy-handed police response.
Bweete said politics and climate change go hand in hand.
"If we have good leaders, we can have good climate policies. This is a long struggle, but we are determined to win," he insisted. 

'Defend life'

Alex Lucitante, a leader of the Cofan Indigenous people on the border between Ecuador and Colombia, won a historic legal victory in 2018 over mining companies in the Amazon, striking out 52 gold mine concessions.
It helped win him the Goldman Environmental Prize -- the Nobel of environmental defenders -- two years ago.
But despite setting up a system of patrols and even drone surveillance, it has not stopped gold prospectors violating their territory.
"The destruction is still going on all around our land, and the threat is stronger," he told AFP, telling of illegal mining, deforestation and threats from armed groups. 
"Today, the situation is particularly critical in our territories," said Lucitante.
"It all happens in plain sight and with the knowledge of the authorities," which are "sometimes linked to illegal actors operating in the area", he added. 
The environmentalist has urged global leaders to listen to the "voice of Indigenous communities" and hear their plea to "defend life".
mrc-gm-hba/ico/de/ju/fg

conflict

In Colombia, a river's 'rights' swept away by mining and conflict

BY LINA VANEGAS

  • "It is like an arterial vein... without it we would not exist," Claudia Rondan, a 41-year-old environmental activist from the Embera Indigenous community, told AFP. - River is 'sick' - Rondan is one of 14 leaders from riverside communities who act as "guardians" of the Atrato, helping to ensure compliance with the 2016 court ruling. 
  • In 2016, a Colombian court sent a powerful statement on environmental protection by ruling that a crucial river in the northwestern Choco jungle, which was being decimated by illegal mining, had legal rights.
  • "It is like an arterial vein... without it we would not exist," Claudia Rondan, a 41-year-old environmental activist from the Embera Indigenous community, told AFP. - River is 'sick' - Rondan is one of 14 leaders from riverside communities who act as "guardians" of the Atrato, helping to ensure compliance with the 2016 court ruling. 
In 2016, a Colombian court sent a powerful statement on environmental protection by ruling that a crucial river in the northwestern Choco jungle, which was being decimated by illegal mining, had legal rights.
The landmark decision, which came the same year the government inked an historic peace deal with the FARC guerrillas who controlled much of Choco, compelled the state to protect the Atrato river, the lifeblood of the region.
A new dawn seemed possible in Colombia's poorest, conflict-scarred department, where dozens of children had died from mercury poisoning due to illegal gold mining in the river.
But eight years later, the Atrato is still dotted with illegal dredging barges that churn up the riverbed in search of gold. New armed groups have filled the void left by FARC fighters. Locals still fear health risks from the river's turbid waters.
As Colombia prepares to host the COP16 UN summit on biodiversity in Cali from October 21 to November 1, the plight of the Atrato underscores the challenges facing conservationists in conflict-ridden areas.
The Atrato snakes 750 kilometers (460 miles) across Choco, from the Andes and through thick jungle to the Caribbean Sea.
In the near absence of paved roads in the region, the river and its tributaries are the main conduits for the transport of people and goods, as well as being a vital source of food.
"It is like an arterial vein... without it we would not exist," Claudia Rondan, a 41-year-old environmental activist from the Embera Indigenous community, told AFP.

River is 'sick'

Rondan is one of 14 leaders from riverside communities who act as "guardians" of the Atrato, helping to ensure compliance with the 2016 court ruling. 
But she feels powerless to revive a waterway she describes as "sick".
Ramon Cartagena, a 59-year-old environmentalist and guardian near the river's source in El Carmen de Atrato, is equally despairing.
"There is no life at all in the river," he said.
"Our parents left us ... a translucent, clear river, and today we have an obligation to do the same and I think we are failing."
The Atrato starts at 3,900 meters (12,800 feet) above sea level in the Western Cordillera, the lowest branch of the Colombian Andes.
At source the water is crystal clear and fit for drinking.
But by the time it widens out near Choco's main city of Quibdo, its fast-flowing, murky waters are laced with mercury, a key ingredient in gold mining that has been blamed for the deaths of dozens of children in the past decade.
Colombia is the country worst affected worldwide by mercury pollution, a UN report found in 2018.
In Quibdo, fishmongers complain they can't find buyers for their catch, because residents fear being poisoned.
Arnold Rincon, director of the local environmental authority, insists that the river's mercury levels are safe.
But Jose Marrugo, an expert in mercury pollution at the University of Cordoba, in northern Colombia, said some villagers show signs of "chronic poisoning."

Look the other way

So far in 2024, the military has destroyed 334 illegal mining machines in the Atrato river. 
But the dredging continues regardless.
On a recent visit to the region, AFP saw several ramshackle mining rafts on the river.
"People are afraid to report it, everyone remains silent," said Bernardino Mosquera, another of Atrato's guardians told AFP.
That includes the river's custodians. They say they have received death threats for combating illegal mining.
Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental activists, with 79 land and environmental activists killed in 2023 alone, according to a report published earlier this month by Global Witness, a watchdog.
The judge who endowed the Atrato with basic rights, Jorge Ivan Palacio, has blamed "a lack of political will" and corruption for the state's failure to properly implement the ruling.
In a damning indictment, Colombia's Ombudsman's Office, which oversees the protection of civil and human rights, said there was "no evidence of any kind of progress towards effective conservation" in the region since 2016.
lv/das/cb/fb/nro

tourism

In French Polynesia, boom in whale-based tourism sparks concern

BY CHARLY BOUDET WITH ELOUAN BLAT IN PARIS

  • Located in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean and consisting of 118 islands, the picture-perfect territory known for its crystal-clear waters, stunning beaches and lush landscapes is one of the few places on Earth where tourists can swim with the whales.
  • A giant whale stole the show at the Summer Olympic Games, shooting out of the water as athletes competed in women's surfing semi-finals on the French Pacific island of Tahiti last month.
  • Located in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean and consisting of 118 islands, the picture-perfect territory known for its crystal-clear waters, stunning beaches and lush landscapes is one of the few places on Earth where tourists can swim with the whales.
A giant whale stole the show at the Summer Olympic Games, shooting out of the water as athletes competed in women's surfing semi-finals on the French Pacific island of Tahiti last month.
It is for spectacular scenes like this that many tourists travel each year to French Polynesia, one of the world's prime destinations to go whale-watching and even swim with the huge mammals.
But even if the French overseas territory seeks to promote eco-friendly tourism, environmentalists and some scientists warn that growing numbers of travellers present a threat to the majestic species.
Every year, between July and November, humpback whales travel from their breeding grounds in Antarctica to the balmy waters of French Polynesia to mate and give birth, covering the extraordinary distance of roughly 6,000 kilometres (3,728 miles). 
Located in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean and consisting of 118 islands, the picture-perfect territory known for its crystal-clear waters, stunning beaches and lush landscapes is one of the few places on Earth where tourists can swim with the whales.
"We're lucky to have humpback whales that come close to the reefs in search of rest and calm," said Julien Anton, a guide for Tahiti Dive Management, a government-approved operator offering whale-watching tours.
"The females try to escape the males, so they come to protect themselves and swim regularly along the reefs."

Whale song

Humpback whales were decimated by commercial whaling in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Due to conservation efforts and a moratorium on commercial whaling adopted in 1986, the population has increased to around 80,000 individuals.
Humpback whales are known for their aerial displays known as breaching as well as elaborate songs with which males court females.
Adult females average 15 meters in length and weigh up to 40 tons, while adult males are slightly smaller.
For many Indigenous peoples across Polynesia, the marine animals are sacred.
In March, Indigenous leaders from across Polynesia including Tahiti, Tonga, Hawaii, New Zealand and the Cook Islands signed a declaration recognising whales as legal persons with inherent rights. 
They hope that the move would strengthen the protection of the species, which is under threat from climate change, ship strikes and whale watch harassment, among other risks.
Whale-watching is an important source of income for French Polynesia, and authorities have taken steps to promote responsible tourism to protect the cetaceans.
In April, regulations imposed a safety distance of 100 metres between the animal and authorised boats, while swimmers must stay 15 metres away.
"This is one of the last places on the planet where we are allowed to observe them at such close quarters," said Anton.

'Do it with love'

However, environmental associations and some scientists have criticised the boom in whale-watching activities.
The Polynesian association Mata Tohora, which works to protect marine mammals, says there are far too many boats on the water.
"We need to limit the number of boats around the whales and dolphins. It's a question of managing the activity, which needs to be done quickly," said Agnes Benet, a biologist and founder of the association.
"You can swim with the whales without disturbing them," she added. 
"It's possible if you take the time, if you're patient and if you do it with love."     
Her association is campaigning for the introduction of a "no whale-watching" period, from 2:00 pm onwards, to allow them to rest.
A study carried out in the South Pacific island nation of Tonga and published in the journal PLOS One in 2019 pointed to "detrimental effects" on the whales targeted by swimming activities, especially mother-calf pairs.
The study said that both observing and swimming activities cause "avoidance responses" from humpback whales, with mothers diving for longer periods of time in the presence of vessels and swimmers.
The risks are not limited to the animals. In 2020, a 29-year-old female swimmer was seriously injured off the coast of Western Australia after becoming trapped between two whales. 
bur-ebl-as/sjw/yad/lb

Global Edition

Report links meatpacking companies to 'war on nature' in Brazil

BY RODRIGO ALMONACID

  • The report accuses meatpackers JBS, Marfrig and Minerva of doing business with farmers engaged in the illegal actions.
  • A report by environmental and rights NGOs Tuesday linked three major meatpacking companies to illegal deforestation in Brazil, where farmers are accused of spraying herbicides from the sky to clear huge tracts of land.
  • The report accuses meatpackers JBS, Marfrig and Minerva of doing business with farmers engaged in the illegal actions.
A report by environmental and rights NGOs Tuesday linked three major meatpacking companies to illegal deforestation in Brazil, where farmers are accused of spraying herbicides from the sky to clear huge tracts of land.
The farmers used 2,4-D -- a herbicide found in "Agent Orange," infamously used in the Vietnam War -- to clear 81,200 hectares of the Pantanal wetland, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, said the report by Mighty Earth, Reporter Brasil and AidEnvironment.
Using "chemical deforestation," they thus cleared an area four times the size of Amsterdam for raising cattle in what is meant to be a sanctuary for biodiversity, it added.
The report accuses meatpackers JBS, Marfrig and Minerva of doing business with farmers engaged in the illegal actions.
They, in turn, supply beef products to retailers including Carrefour, Casino/GPA, Grupo Mateus and Sendas/Assai, it added.
"The deliberate killing of countless trees and wildlife in the Pantanal by aerial spraying of a highly toxic compound of 'Agent Orange' is a devastating new war on nature being waged by the beef industry," said Mighty Earth Brazil director Joao Goncalves.
Apart from killing plant life, the chemicals can contaminate water and endanger fish, animals, even human beings.
Vietnam blames Agent Orange, sprayed by US forces to destroy ground cover and food sources in their war with North Vietnamese troops from 1962 to 1971, for severe birth defects in 150,000 children.
One farmer implicated in the Pantanal "chemical deforestation" campaign has been charged with numerous environmental crimes and fined over $520 million.
- 'The biome cannot withstand' - 
From 2009 to 2023 overall, the report said JBS slaughterhouses were linked to nearly 470,000 hectares of deforestation and land use conversion in the Brazilian Amazon and the Cerrado tropical savanna.
"Including Marfrig and Minerva Foods slaughterhouses, the total area destroyed over this period rises above 550,000 hectares. Of this total, 55 percent is located in the Cerrado biome and 45 percent in the Amazon," it said.
The NGO report was published as the Pantanal, the world's biggest wetland, battles devastating wildfires that have, among other things, injured a number of jaguars -- listed as "near threatened" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.
Authorities have said many of the fires were deliberately set, often to clear land for farming.
"The biome cannot withstand fire and rampant chemical deforestation," said Goncalves.
"The big beef companies need to urgently suspend all ranchers hell-bent on this destruction of nature for profit."
JBS in a response included in the report said the cases mentioned have not appeared in a database or an alert system it uses for monitoring.
The company added in a note to AFP that its policies do not "tolerate illegal deforestation."
Marfrig said that at the time it received cattle from a ranch mentioned in the report, the supplier had "met all the socio-environmental criteria."
Minerva said it had no business with the same farm.
Carrefour, for its part, said "none of the five farms mentioned is (a) supplier of the Carrefour Brazil group."
raa/app/mr/mlr/cb/st

Global Edition

Portugal battles ferocious wildfires as toll rises to seven

BY LEVI FERNANDES WITH THOMAS CABRAL IN LISBON

  • Across the Iberian nation, more than 4,500 firefighters, more than 1,000 vehicles and around 20 aircraft on Tuesday were battling some 50 fires in all, with an alert warning in force since Saturday afternoon extended until Thursday evening.
  • Thousands of firefighters on Tuesday battled wildfires in Portugal that have killed seven people and burnt more land in a matter of days than the rest of the summer combined.
  • Across the Iberian nation, more than 4,500 firefighters, more than 1,000 vehicles and around 20 aircraft on Tuesday were battling some 50 fires in all, with an alert warning in force since Saturday afternoon extended until Thursday evening.
Thousands of firefighters on Tuesday battled wildfires in Portugal that have killed seven people and burnt more land in a matter of days than the rest of the summer combined.
Fanned by bellowing winds in the stifling heat, the three largest fires concentrated in the northern Aveiro region scorched some 10,000 hectares (24,700 acres) by Monday evening, according to a civil protection report.
Three firefighters died on Tuesday when their vehicle was trapped by the flames, civil protection authorities said, bringing the fire-related toll up to seven, with some 50 injured.
The two women and a man were killed while fighting flames in the central region of Coimbra, the interior ministry said. The trio was previously reported to have been killed in the north.
Across the Iberian nation, more than 4,500 firefighters, more than 1,000 vehicles and around 20 aircraft on Tuesday were battling some 50 fires in all, with an alert warning in force since Saturday afternoon extended until Thursday evening.
"We're in for some very difficult times over the next few days," Portugal's Prime Minister Luis Montenegro -- who cancelled all his Tuesday engagements in response to the blaze -- warned on Monday evening.

'Nobody is sleeping here'

"Nobody is sleeping here, we've been up since two o'clock in the morning," Maria Ludivina Castanheira, 63, said in the village of Arrancada, south of the coastal city of Porto, where villagers hurried to a small warehouse to fight a fire there.
"We opened the cages so that the pigeons could escape" and "we moved the chickens to a neighbour's," Antonia Estima, 39, said as she took a break from helping to fight the flames.
Portuguese authorities have invoked the European Union's civil protection mechanism to obtain eight additional firefighting aircraft.
Following the two Canadair water bombers sent from Spain on Monday, aircraft made available by France, Italy and Greece were also expected to arrive.
In the municipality of Albergaria-a-Velha, a 28-year-old Brazilian employed by a forestry company died after he became trapped by the flames as he tried to collect some tools.
Another person suffered a heart attack on Monday, while on Sunday a volunteer firefighter died suddenly while taking a lunch break from battling a blaze near Oliveira de Azemeis in hard-hit Aveiro.
Raging since the weekend before worsening on Monday, the blazes have also left around 50 people injured, including 33 firefighters, according to the latest figures from the authorities.
Several roads are still cut off in the northern Portuguese districts of Aveiro, Viseu, Vila Real, Braga and Porto as well as in the central Coimbra region.
Monday saw the highest fire-risk weather conditions in the northern half of the country since 2001, according to experts interviewed by the weekly Expresso.
Scientists say that fossil fuel emissions are worsening the length, frequency and intensity of heatwaves across the world.
The rising temperatures are leading to longer wildfire seasons and increasing the area burnt in the flames, according to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
lf-tsc/sbk-yad/bc

Poland

Storm Boris toll rises to 22 in central Europe

BY ANNA MARIA JAKUBEK AND BERNARD OSSER WITH BLAISE GAUQUELIN IN VIENNA

  • Polish police on Tuesday reported that three more people had died as a result of Storm Boris, raising the toll in the country to seven. 
  • The death toll in the extreme weather and flooding let loose by Storm Boris in central Europe has risen to 22, authorities said on Tuesday, after three more victims were reported in Poland and one in Austria.
  • Polish police on Tuesday reported that three more people had died as a result of Storm Boris, raising the toll in the country to seven. 
The death toll in the extreme weather and flooding let loose by Storm Boris in central Europe has risen to 22, authorities said on Tuesday, after three more victims were reported in Poland and one in Austria.
High winds and unusually heavy rainfall have hit swathes of Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia since last week. 
Although the weather seemed to be stabilising in several places, the ground remained saturated and rivers were overflowing, with authorities asking people to remain cautious.  
Two big cities in Poland -- Opole in the south and Wroclaw in the west -- were still awaiting the flood wave and there were concerns that the dykes there could break. 
Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday announced additional government aid for those in Poland hit by the storm, bringing the total sum to two billion zloty ($520 million).
Polish police on Tuesday reported that three more people had died as a result of Storm Boris, raising the toll in the country to seven. 
Police chief Marek Boron announced the updated figure of seven dead at a televised crisis meeting.
At least two of the new victims were discovered in the southwestern district of Klodzko. 
"The body of an 82-year-old man was discovered in a car," district police spokeswoman Wioletta Martuszewska told AFP.  
"A couple of hours later, mountain rescue services said the body of a man had been found near a riverbed," she added. 
There were unofficial reports of additional victims elsewhere, but police cautioned against publishing unverified information. 
"We ask everyone not to report false information about the number of flood victims in the media," the police said on X, formerly Twitter. 
- 'Disaster' - 
A new victim was also reported on Tuesday in Austria. 
An 81-year-old woman was Austria's fifth victim of the floods, a police spokesman told AFP.  
The fire brigade found the woman's body on Tuesday in her flooded home in Lower Austria, the worst-impacted province in the Alpine nation. 
Storm Boris has caused the deaths of seven people in Romania and three in the Czech Republic, according to the latest tallies.  
In Austria, on Tuesday, 26 communities were cut off and with the weather improving, "we are discovering the scale of the disaster", Lower Austrian governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner told reporters.
In the Czech Republic, more than 60,000 homes were still without electricity, mainly in the country's northeast, and 500 people were evacuated on Monday evening, including children.
The largest Czech retention basin, the Rozmberk pond in the country's south, has been overflowing its banks.
Experts say climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as torrential rains and floods.
Andreas von Weissenberg of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said studies to determine whether climate change is linked to these events are expected in the coming months.
Von Weissenberg said local Red Cross teams were helping the rescue and evacuation efforts, including attending to people's "emotional and mental health". 
He said the floods have been "branded as historic", but warned that "climate change has a way of moving the goalposts".
burs-amj/bc

climate

Electric cars overtake petrol models in Norway

BY PIERRE-HENRY DESHAYES

  • "The electrification of the fleet of passenger cars is going quickly, and Norway is thereby rapidly moving towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars," Thorsen said.
  • Hot on the heels of still-dominant diesel cars, electric vehicles now outnumber petrol models for the first time in oil-rich Norway, a world first that puts the country on track to taking fossil fuel vehicles off the road.
  • "The electrification of the fleet of passenger cars is going quickly, and Norway is thereby rapidly moving towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars," Thorsen said.
Hot on the heels of still-dominant diesel cars, electric vehicles now outnumber petrol models for the first time in oil-rich Norway, a world first that puts the country on track to taking fossil fuel vehicles off the road.
Of the 2.8 million private cars registered in Norway, 754,303 are all-electric, compared to 753,905 that run on petrol, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV), an industry organisation, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Diesel models remain most numerous at just under one million, but their sales are falling sharply.
"This is historic. A milestone few saw coming 10 years ago," OFV director Oyvind Solberg Thorsen said in a statement.
"The electrification of the fleet of passenger cars is going quickly, and Norway is thereby rapidly moving towards becoming the first country in the world with a passenger car fleet dominated by electric cars," Thorsen said.
The speed at which Norway's car fleet is being renewed "suggests that in 2026 we will have more electric cars than diesel cars," he said.
"As far as I know, no other country in the world is in the same situation" with EVs outnumbering petrol cars, he told AFP.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), electric vehicles made up just 3.2 percent of the global car fleet in 2023 -- 4.1 percent in France, 7.6 percent in China, 18 percent in Iceland -- with this data including rechargeable hybrid cars, unlike the Norwegian data. 
Norway, paradoxically a major oil and gas producer, has set a target to sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2025, 10 years ahead of the European Union's goal. Norway is not an EU member.
Boosted by sales of the Tesla Model Y, all-electric vehicles made up a record 94.3 percent of new car registrations in August in Norway, a sharp contrast to EV struggles seen elsewhere in Europe.
"We're almost there," said Christina Bu, head of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association. 
"Now the government just has to make a little extra effort in the 2025 budget bill (to be presented to parliament on October 7) and resist the temptation to raise taxes on EVs while continuing to increase those on fuel cars," she told AFP.
In a bid to electrify road transport to help meet Norway's climate commitments, authorities have offered generous tax rebates on EVs, making them competitively priced compared to highly-taxed fuel and diesel cars, as well as hybrid vehicles.
Several other EV incentives -- including exemptions on inner city tolls, free parking and use of collective transport lanes -- have also played a role in Norway's success, even though those have gradually been rolled back over the years.

Sharp contrast with Europe

Norway has come a long way in 20 years: in September 2004, the country's car fleet counted 1.6 million petrol cars, around 230,000 diesel cars and just 1,000 EVs, OFV noted.
The transition to EVs has played a big role in Norway's efforts to meet its climate commitments, which include a 55-percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030 from 1990 levels.
But it is not enough.
In 2023, emissions shrank by 4.7 percent from the previous year, according to official statistics, but the decline compared to 1990 was just 9.1 percent.
Electric cars are considered even more climate-friendly in Norway, where almost all electricity is generated by hydro power.
This success story contrasts sharply with the situation in the rest of Europe, where sales of EVs are slumping as hybrid models prove more popular.
Electric car sales began falling at the end of 2023, and account for just 12.5 percent of new cars sold on the continent since the start of the year, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA).
Their share of the market is expected to increase sharply in 2025, to between 20 and 24 percent of new car registrations, according to think tank Transport & Environment (T&E).
Some doubt the EU's ability to completely ban fuel and diesel cars by 2035.
In Norway's neighbour and EU member Sweden, sales of new EVs have decreased this year for the first time, according to industry group Mobility Sweden, likely the result of a government decision to remove a rebate on EV purchases.
phy/po/jm

Thailand

Myanmar villagers battle to save rice crop as flood death toll jumps to 226

  • State TV in junta-ruled Myanmar confirmed 226 fatalities late on Monday, with 77 people missing, doubling the previous toll of 113. 
  • War-weary Myanmar villagers salvaged crops from flooded fields Tuesday as the country's death toll in the wake of Typhoon Yagi doubled to 226 and the UN warned as many as 630,000 people could need assistance.
  • State TV in junta-ruled Myanmar confirmed 226 fatalities late on Monday, with 77 people missing, doubling the previous toll of 113. 
War-weary Myanmar villagers salvaged crops from flooded fields Tuesday as the country's death toll in the wake of Typhoon Yagi doubled to 226 and the UN warned as many as 630,000 people could need assistance.
Yagi swept across northern Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar more than a week ago with powerful winds and an enormous amount of rain, triggering floods and landslides that have killed more than 500 people, according to official figures.
State TV in junta-ruled Myanmar confirmed 226 fatalities late on Monday, with 77 people missing, doubling the previous toll of 113. 
The crisis has only deepened people's miseries in Myanmar, where millions have suffered through more than three years of war since the military seized power in 2021.
In Loikaw district in eastern Kayah state -- which has seen fierce fighting between junta forces and armed groups opposed to its rule -- villagers rued their latest trial.
"We have already faced wars and fled from villages many times," local Chit Thein told AFP.
"We have many troubles and now it's floods again -- so much suffering in our lives."
In nearby fields, farmers laboured to save a rice crop completely submerged in paddies by the floodwaters. 
More than 150,000 homes have been flooded and nearly 260,000 hectares (640,000 acres) of rice paddies and other crops destroyed, according to Myanmar state media.
The junta has begun relief efforts, opening more than 400 camps according to state media, and appealed for international aid. 
But in Loikaw district, Chit Thein said the people of Phayarphyu village were still waiting for help.
"There are many things we have lost. We lost houses, clothes in the wars, and now floods have hit our house so we have nothing left," he said.
"We are sheltering at a monastery. But there is not much food for us and no donations, and no-one has come to help us." 
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said an estimated 631,000 people had been affected by flooding across Myanmar.
Food, drinking water, shelter and clothes are all urgently needed, UNOCHA said, warning blocked roads and damaged bridges were all severely hampering relief efforts.
The UN's World Food Programme on Monday said the floods were the worst in Myanmar's recent history, without giving precise details.
Severe flooding hit the country in 2011 and 2015, with more than 100 deaths reported on both occasions, while in 2008 Cyclone Nargis left more than 138,000 people dead or missing. 
The junta issued a rare appeal for foreign aid at the weekend, with neighbour India so far the only country to respond, sending 10 tonnes of materials, including dry rations, clothing and medicine.
UNOCHA said more resources are urgently needed.
In recent years Myanmar's military has blocked or frustrated humanitarian assistance from abroad, including after powerful Cyclone Mocha last year when it suspended travel authorisations for aid groups trying to reach around a million people.
Even before the latest floods, people in Myanmar were grappling with the effects of three years of war between the junta and armed groups opposed to its rule, with millions forced from their homes by the conflict.

Thailand compensation

Across southeast Asia, hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee over the past week as Yagi rains swelled rivers and creeks beyond bursting point.
Many had to wade through murky brown waters up their chins, while others used whatever means they could -- including elephants in Myanmar and jetskis in Thailand.
Thailand's northern provinces were hit hard, with one district reporting its worst inundations in 80 years.
The death toll in the kingdom rose to 15 on Tuesday, according to new figures from the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra's government said it would make $90 million available for flood relief, announcing financial aid of up to $6,000 per household for those affected by the floods.
In Vietnam, the death toll stands at 292, with 38 missing, more than 230,000 homes damaged and 280,000 hectares of crops destroyed, according to authorities.
Yagi, the strongest typhoon to hit the north of the country in decades, tore across the densely populated Red River delta -- a vital agricultural region that is also home to major manufacturing hubs -- damaging factories and infrastructure, and inundating farmland.
The typhoon caused an estimated 40 trillion dong ($1.6 billion) in economic losses, state media reported, citing an initial government assessment.
burs-pdw/fox

coal

Coal phase-out fuels far right in rural eastern Germany

BY FEMKE COLBORNE

  • Most people in Spremberg, population 25,000, have grudgingly accepted the coal phase-out plan, under which the government has earmarked billions for structural transition plans, she said.
  • White clouds still billow from the cooling towers of a coal plant near Spremberg in Germany's ex-communist east but the end is in sight as Berlin phases out the dirty fossil fuel.
  • Most people in Spremberg, population 25,000, have grudgingly accepted the coal phase-out plan, under which the government has earmarked billions for structural transition plans, she said.
White clouds still billow from the cooling towers of a coal plant near Spremberg in Germany's ex-communist east but the end is in sight as Berlin phases out the dirty fossil fuel.
Thousands of jobs have already been lost in the region, where wind farms now rise near abandoned open-pit mines and many people look with dread towards 2038, the deadline for the "coal exit".
Their fears help explain the strong local support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which does not just rail against migrants but also rejects the green energy push and questions man-made climate change.
At local elections held in Spremberg in June, the AfD scored 39.3 percent -- an omen ahead of regional elections next Sunday in the state of Brandenburg, which polls suggest it could win.
Lignite, or brown coal, may be a climate killer, but since the 19th century it has been key to the identity of the Lusatia industrial region on the Polish border, known as the Lausitz in German.
"Thousands of people here have been linked to coal their whole working lives," said the town's mayor, Christine Herntier, an independent who has held the post for a decade.
"We are proud of our tradition," said Herntier, 67, pointing to a huge map on her office wall of the Schwarze Pumpe plant and its surrounding industrial complex.
Most people in Spremberg, population 25,000, have grudgingly accepted the coal phase-out plan, under which the government has earmarked billions for structural transition plans, she said.
But, she added, ahead of the state election the winding down of coal "is still a big issue".

Anger over wind farm

Michael Hanko, the AfD's top representative in Spremberg, said he is certain that the looming demise of the lignite industry is "one of the main reasons" residents are voting for his party.
"I don't think the government has really got them on board with this whole prescribed transformation, saying that we now have to do everything with renewable energies," Hanko said.
The AfD, founded about a decade ago, scored a triumph earlier this month when it won an election in the eastern state of Thuringia and came a close second in Saxony.
It now also has a good chance of winning in Brandenburg, the state that surrounds Berlin, where it is polling narrowly in first place at around 27 percent.
When the German government decided five years ago to phase out coal, it pledged around 40 billion euros ($44 billion) to help coal regions adapt, with 17 billion euros for the Lausitz alone.
Much of the money is intended to flow into developing the renewables and hydrogen sectors, helping the region maintain its identity as an energy hub.
But residents complain the investment has been too slow to materialise and is flowing into the wrong places.
In Spremberg, plans to extend a nearby wind park have caused outrage among some locals, who fear it will be a threat to 150-year-old trees, a protected swallow species and drinking water. 

'Something different'

Coal has long been synonymous with the Lausitz region, which takes in parts of Brandenburg and Saxony and a small strip of Poland, and where lignite was discovered in the late 18th century.
But the industry all but collapsed after German reunification in 1990, when most of the region's open pit mines were shut down and thousands of jobs vanished. 
Today, only around 8,000 people are employed in the lignite industry across the Lausitz, with 4,500 of them in Brandenburg, though the industry is still one of the largest private employers in the state and coal remains a strong part of the region's identity. 
Already weary from the problems caused by reunification, people in the region have felt "overwhelmed" by recent global challenges, said Lars Katzmarek, a board member of the Pro-Lausitz campaign group.
"The coronavirus, the energy crisis, the Ukraine war -- these are all very difficult things that people still haven't fully digested... and perhaps at some point they just close their ears," he said.
On a rainy morning in Spremberg, Joachim Paschke, 81, who used to work in mechanical engineering and welding, was buying bread rolls in the bakery opposite the town hall.
"I'm definitely not an AfD supporter but I can understand people who are," he said.
"The established parties have nothing concrete and the AfD is offering something different. People want change."
fec/fz/gv

environment

'Virus hunters' track threats to head off next pandemic

BY SARA HUSSEIN

  • And there is a growing need to track these threats as climate change expands the range of infectious disease globally.
  • A global network of doctors and laboratories is working to pinpoint emerging viral threats, including many driven by climate change, in a bid to head off the world's next pandemic.
  • And there is a growing need to track these threats as climate change expands the range of infectious disease globally.
A global network of doctors and laboratories is working to pinpoint emerging viral threats, including many driven by climate change, in a bid to head off the world's next pandemic.
The coalition of self-described "virus hunters" has uncovered everything from an unusual tick-borne disease in Thailand to a surprise outbreak in Colombia of an infection spread by midges.
"The roster of things that we have to worry about, as we saw with Covid-19, is not static," said Gavin Cloherty, an infectious disease expert who heads the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition.
"We have to be very vigilant about how the bad guys that we know about are changing... But also if there's new kids on the block," he told AFP.
The coalition brings together doctors and scientists at universities and health institutions across the world, with funding from healthcare and medical devices giant Abbott.
By uncovering new threats, the coalition gives Abbott a potential headstart in designing the kinds of testing kits that were central to the Covid-19 response.
And its involvement gives the coalition deep pockets and the ability to detect and sequence but also respond to new viruses.
"When we find something, we're able to very quickly make diagnostic tests at industry level," Cloherty said.
"The idea is to ringfence an outbreak, so that we would be able to hopefully prevent a pandemic."
The coalition has sequenced approximately 13,000 samples since it began operating in 2021.
In Colombia, it found an outbreak of Oropouche, a virus spread by midges and mosquitoes, that had rarely been seen there before.
Phylogenetic work to trace the strain's family tree revealed it came from Peru or Ecuador, rather than Brazil, another hotspot.
"You can see where things are moving from. It's important from a public health perspective," said Cloherty.

Difficult and costly

More recently, the coalition worked with doctors in Thailand to reveal that a tick-bourne virus was behind a mysterious cluster of patient cases.
"At the time, we didn't know what virus caused this syndrome," explained Pakpoom Phoompoung, associate professor of infectious disease at Siriraj Hospital.
Testing and sequencing of samples that dated back as far as 2014 found many were positive for severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTSV).
"Less than 10 patients had (previously) been diagnosed with SFTSV in Thailand... we don't have PCR diagnosis, we don't have serology for this viral infection diagnosis," Pakpoom told AFP.
Diagnosing it "is difficult, labour intensive and also is costly".
And there is a growing need to track these threats as climate change expands the range of infectious disease globally.
The link between climate change and infectious disease is well-established and multi-faceted.
Warmer conditions allow vectors like mosquitoes to live in new locations, more rain creates more breeding pools, and extreme weather forces people into the open where they are more vulnerable to bites.
Human impact on the planet is also driving the spread and evolution of infectious disease in other ways: biodiversity loss forces viruses to evolve into new hosts, and can push animals into closer contact with humans.

'You have to be vigilant'

Phylogenetic analysis of the SFTSV strain in Thailand gives a snapshot of the complex interplay.
It showed the virus had evolved from one tick with a smaller geographic range into the hardier Asian longhorned tick.
The analysis suggested its evolution was driven largely by pesticide use that reduced the numbers of the original tick host.
Once the virus evolved, it could spread further in part because Asian longhorned ticks can live on birds, which are travelling further and faster because of changing climate conditions.
"It's almost like they're an airline," said Cloherty.
Climate change's fingerprints are in everything from record outbreaks of dengue in Latin America and the Caribbean to the spread of West Nile Virus in the United States.
While the coalition grew from work that preceded the pandemic, the global spread of Covid-19 offered a potent reminder of the risks of infectious disease.
But Cloherty fears people are already forgetting those lessons.
"You have to be vigilant," he said.
"Something that happens in Bangkok could be happening in Boston tomorrow."
sah/sw

Azerbaijan

'Crushed and downtrodden': Azerbaijan's COP29 crackdown

BY ELMAN MAMEDOV

  • Several villagers were arrested after the violent police crackdown and Soyudlu remained under lockdown for weeks.
  • Azerbaijani rights defender and climate advocate Anar Mammadli was picking up his son from kindergarten when police arrested him in front of the children.
  • Several villagers were arrested after the violent police crackdown and Soyudlu remained under lockdown for weeks.
Azerbaijani rights defender and climate advocate Anar Mammadli was picking up his son from kindergarten when police arrested him in front of the children.
His arrest was one of the latest in a series which critics say undermines the oil-rich nation's credibility as a host of the United Nations COP29 climate change conference in November.
Mammadli has been locked up since April 29 and risks up to eight years behind bars on smuggling charges human rights groups say are "bogus".
He and activist Bashir Suleymanli had formed a civil society group called Climate of Justice Initiative.
The organisation set out to promote environmental justice in the tightly controlled Caspian nation.
Suleymanli told AFP that the group "was forced to close under government pressure even before it began raising awareness of environmental issues".
"We have no platform through which we could be heard -- not to mention the fact that we will not be able to stage protests during COP29," he said.
International rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have denounced Mammadli's prosecution on "bogus" charges and demanded his release.
Amnesty said it was part of a "continuing crackdown on civil society activists" ahead of COP29.

'Harsh measures'

In the streets of Baku, roads are being repaired and buildings getting fresh coats of paint as authorities add lustre to the capital in preparation for hosting thousands of foreign guests during COP29, which runs from November 11 to 22.
International rights groups have urged the UN and Council of Europe rights watchdog to "use the momentum of COP29" to "put an end to the persecution of critical voices" in Azerbaijan.
But rather than an easing of repression, Kenan Khalilzade of the Baku-based Ecofront ecological group said the run-up to COP29 has seen more government pressure on activists.
He said he was briefly detained last year during an anti-pollution protest in the remote village of Soyudlu in the country's western Gadabay region.
In 2023, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at villagers protesting the construction of a pond intended to drain toxic waste from a nearby gold mine.
Locals argued that the pond would cause serious environmental damage to their pastures.
Several villagers were arrested after the violent police crackdown and Soyudlu remained under lockdown for weeks.
"Police threatened me with harsh measures if I ever tried to return to Soyudlu," Khalilzade told AFP.
An investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a global network of investigative journalists, found the mine -- formally operated by British company Anglo Asian Mining Plc -- is in fact owned by Aliyev's two daughters.

'Biased and unacceptable'

Any sign of dissent in Azerbaijan is usually met with a tough response from Aliyev's government, which has faced strong Western criticism for persecuting political opponents and suffocating independent media.
The 62-year-old has ruled the country with an iron fist since 2003, after the death of his father, Azerbaijan's Soviet-era Communist leader and former KGB general Heydar Aliyev.
The Union for Freedom of Political Prisoners of Azerbaijan has published a list of 288 political prisoners, including opposition politicians, rights activists, and journalists.
Among them are several journalists from AbzasMedia and Toplum TV, media outlets critical of Aliyev, and prominent anti-corruption advocate Gubad Ibadoglu who remains in custody despite poor health.
In May, Human Rights Watch said the crackdown in Azerbaijan "raises grave concerns" about how activists "will be able to participate meaningfully and push for ambitious action at COP29".
Azerbaijan's foreign ministry has rejected the accusations as "biased and unacceptable".
"Conditioning Azerbaijan's presidency of COP29 with inappropriate political motivation contradicts the very essence of the idea of cooperation addressing climate change that Azerbaijan has undertaken," it said in May.
But Khadija Ismayilova, an investigative journalist who has spent months in jail after revealing official corruption, said COP29 delegations should be mindful of Azerbaijan's human rights record.
"Countries that take part in COP29 must be aware that civil society is crushed and downtrodden in Azerbaijan," she said.
bur/fg/fox

Azerbaijan

Climate finance: what you need to know ahead of COP29

BY BENJAMIN LEGENDRE

  • - The Climate Policy Initiative, a nonprofit research group, estimates that $10 trillion per year in climate finance will be needed between 2030 and 2050.
  • Developing countries will need trillions of dollars in the years ahead to deal with climate change -- but exactly how much is needed, and who is going to pay for it?  
  • - The Climate Policy Initiative, a nonprofit research group, estimates that $10 trillion per year in climate finance will be needed between 2030 and 2050.
Developing countries will need trillions of dollars in the years ahead to deal with climate change -- but exactly how much is needed, and who is going to pay for it?  
These difficult questions will be wrestled at this year's United Nations climate conference, known as COP29, being hosted in Azerbaijan in November.

What is climate finance?

It is the buzzword in this year's negotiations, but there isn't one agreed definition of "climate finance".
In general terms, it's money spent in a manner "consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development", as per phrasing used in the Paris agreement.
That includes government or private money channelled into low-carbon investments in clean energy like wind and solar, technology like electric vehicles, or adaptation measures like dikes to hold back rising seas.
But could a subsidy for a new water-efficient hotel, for example, be included in climate finance? 
The COPs -- the annual UN-sponsored climate summits -- have never defined it.

How much is needed?

The Climate Policy Initiative, a nonprofit research group, estimates that $10 trillion per year in climate finance will be needed between 2030 and 2050.
This compares to around $1.3 trillion spent in 2021-2022.
But in the parlance of UN negotiations, climate finance has come to refer to something more specific -- the difficulties that developing nations face getting the money they need to adapt to global warming.
The line between climate finance and conventional development aid is sometimes blurred.
But experts commissioned by the UN estimate that developing countries, excluding China, will need an estimated $2.4 trillion per year by 2030.

Who will pay?

Under a UN accord adopted in 1992, a handful of countries deemed wealthy, industrialised, and the most responsible for global warming were obligated to provide compensation to the rest of the world.
In 2009, these countries -- the United States, the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, Turkey, Norway, Iceland, New Zealand and Australia -- committed to paying $100 billion per year by 2020.
They only achieved this for the first time in 2022. The delay eroded trust and fuelled accusations that rich countries were shirking their responsibility.
At COP29, nearly 200 nations are expected to agree on a new finance goal beyond 2025 -- but deep divisions remain over how much should be paid, and who should pay it. 
India has called for $1 trillion annually, a ten-fold increase in the existing pledge, but countries on the hook to pay it want other major economies to chip in.
They argue times have changed since 1992. Economies have grown, new powers have emerged, and today the big industrialised nations of the early 1990s represent just 30 percent of historic greenhouse gas emissions.
In particular, there is a push for China -- the world's largest polluter today -- and the Gulf countries to pay, a proposal they do not accept.

Where will they find the money?

Today, most climate finance aid goes through development banks or funds co-managed with the countries concerned, such as the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility.
Campaigners are very critical of the $100 billion pledge because two-thirds of the money was distributed as loans, often at preferential rates, but seen as compounding debt woes for poorer nations. 
Even revised upwards, it is likely any future commitment will fall well short of what is needed.
But it is viewed as highly symbolic nonetheless, and crucial to unlocking other sources of money, namely private capital.
Financial diplomacy also plays out at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the G20, where hosts Brazil want to craft a global tax on billionaires. 
The idea of new global taxes, for example on aviation or maritime transport, is also supported by France, Kenya and Barbados, with the backing of UN chief Antonio Guterres. 
Redirecting fossil fuel subsidies towards clean energy or wiping the debt of poor countries in exchange for climate investments are also among the options. 
Another proposal, from COP29 host Azerbaijan, has floated asking fossil fuel producers to contribute to a new fund that would channel money to developing countries. 
As for the "loss and damage" fund created at COP28 to support vulnerable nations cope with extreme weather events, it is still far from up and running, with just $661 million pledged so far.
bl-eab/np/yad/sw

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan says 'God-given' oil and gas will help it go green

BY IRAKLI METREVELI

  • "COP hosts have a responsibility to deliver progress and the answer is not found at the bottom of an oil well or a gas pipeline, but through ambitious climate finance and action," said Jasper Inventor, Greenpeace International's head of delegation for COP29.
  • Flames soar into the air from a sandstone outcrop on a hillside of the Absheron peninsula near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, as it prepares to host the COP29 climate conference.
  • "COP hosts have a responsibility to deliver progress and the answer is not found at the bottom of an oil well or a gas pipeline, but through ambitious climate finance and action," said Jasper Inventor, Greenpeace International's head of delegation for COP29.
Flames soar into the air from a sandstone outcrop on a hillside of the Absheron peninsula near Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, as it prepares to host the COP29 climate conference.
The "burning mountain" -- Yanardag in Azerbaijani -- is fed by underground gas rising to the surface and ignited upon contact with oxygen.
The abundance of naturally occurring fires from the energy-rich nation's huge gas deposits has earned it the nickname "The Land of Fire".
Azerbaijan's vast oil and gas resources "have shaped the history, culture, politics, and the economy" of the Caspian nation, said energy expert Kamalya Mustafayeva.
Azerbaijan's oil deposits -- 7 billion barrels of proven reserves -- were discovered in the mid-19th century, making what was then part of the Russian Empire one of the first places in the world to start commercial oil production.
"The world's first industrial onshore oil well was drilled in Azerbaijan, and also the first offshore one," Ashraf Shikhaliyev, the director of energy ministry's international cooperation department, told AFP.

'Born of oil boom'

Since gaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Azerbaijan has produced 1.05 billion tonnes of oil and is set to increase its natural gas production from 37 billion cubic metres (bcm) this year to 49 bcm over the next decade, according to official figures.
Revenues from oil and gas production make up about 35 percent of the country's GDP and nearly half of the state budget.
"Azerbaijan's oil revenues -- up to $200 billion to date since 1991 -- gave the country an opportunity to make a huge leap forward," said Sabit Bagirov, who headed the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan in the 1990s.
"Baku, once a small fishermen's hamlet of some 4,000 people, was born of an oil boom," which led to a massive population growth -- at a faster rate from the 1890s than London, Paris, or New York -- said energy expert Ilham Shaban.
Modern Baku is a bustling metropolis dotted with skyscrapers, seaside promenades, and futuristic buildings designed by world-renowned architects.
The Azerbaijani capital has become a venue for major international events, such as the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, matches in the Euro 2020 football championship, and the Formula 1 motor racing Grand Prix.
The manna of petrodollars helped Azerbaijan to arm itself against arch-foe Armenia, and last year Baku recaptured its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenian separatists who had controlled it for decades.

'Europe's energy security'

About 75 percent of Azerbaijan's energy exports go to European markets.
In 2022, the European Commission -- keen to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian gas -- signed a deal with Baku to double gas imports from the country.
While Azerbaijan's share of gas supplies to Europe might only reach five percent by 2033, the country can meet all the gas needs of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Albania, and the south of Italy, said Bagirov.
"Azerbaijan has become an important factor in ensuring Europe's energy security," said expert Mustafayeva.
But fossil fuel reserves, which President Ilham Aliyev has called "a gift of God", are expected to be exhausted within several decades.
"Azerbaijan's oil wells will run dry within 20 years, natural gas reserves will last for 50 years," Bagirov said.
"Economic dependence on hydrocarbons is a concern for the Azerbaijani government, which is making serious efforts to develop other economic sectors," including technology, agriculture, and tourism, he said.
Expert Shaban said "Azerbaijan's goal is to get the maximum money from its hydrocarbon resources before Europe reaches its decarbonisation objective," which will lead to a significant drop in the continent's demand for fossil fuels.

Green agenda

Azerbaijan's ambitious plans to expand energy production mean the country would emit 781 million tonnes of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas a year -- more than twice the annual emissions of the UK, London-based Global Witness environmentalist group said in January.
The prospect has prompted criticism from environmentalists ahead of the COP29.
"COP hosts have a responsibility to deliver progress and the answer is not found at the bottom of an oil well or a gas pipeline, but through ambitious climate finance and action," said Jasper Inventor, Greenpeace International's head of delegation for COP29.
Azerbaijani officials said the country is making significant strides in setting its own green agenda.
The country aims to increase its renewable energy capacity to 30 percent by 2030 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2050.
Shikhaliyev listed "clean energy mega projects" such as transforming the newly-recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh region into a "green energy zone" fully reliant on solar, wind and hydro power.
im/fg/mca

fire

Firefighters battling flames around Brazil's capital

BY RAMON SAHMKOW

  • Three separate fires broke out over the weekend in the Brasilia National Park, officials said, razing about 1,200 hectares by Monday as dozens of firefighters with planes and helicopters battled to contain the onslaught.
  • Brazilian firefighters on Monday battled flames blazing through a nature reserve in the capital district of Brasilia, where an area the size of 3,000 football fields has already been destroyed.
  • Three separate fires broke out over the weekend in the Brasilia National Park, officials said, razing about 1,200 hectares by Monday as dozens of firefighters with planes and helicopters battled to contain the onslaught.
Brazilian firefighters on Monday battled flames blazing through a nature reserve in the capital district of Brasilia, where an area the size of 3,000 football fields has already been destroyed.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called an emergency meeting of his cabinet as Brazil's worst drought in seven decades has fueled fires in the Amazon rainforest and the Pantanal wetlands, choking major cities including Rio de Janeiro with smoke.
The capital Brasilia was the latest to be hit, battling its worst fire of the year as residents used buckets of water to dampen their threatened homes.
Three separate fires broke out over the weekend in the Brasilia National Park, officials said, razing about 1,200 hectares by Monday as dozens of firefighters with planes and helicopters battled to contain the onslaught.
"The flames began to come with great speed and at a height of about six meters (19 feet), and the community started to mobilize," nurse Simone Costa, 51, told AFP as she inspected fire damage with her husband and daughter near their home in Brasilia.
"We grabbed buckets of water to control the fire so that it did not move even closer," she said.
Authorities warned that things were likely to get worse in ultra-dry conditions after 140 days without rain in Brasilia.
The number of fires in Brazil so far this month (57,312) has already exceeded the total for September 2023 in its entirety, according to satellite data from the INPE research institute.
Several Brazilian dams are at historically low levels, and cities like Rio are affected by water restrictions.
Though fuelled by drought, which experts say is made more likely by climate change, authorities say most of the fires were set illegally.
rsr/app/ll/arm/mlr/bjt

fauna

Peruvian police seize 1.3 tons of shark fins

  • Harvesting often involves catching sharks, removing their fins, and tossing them back into the ocean to die.
  • Peruvian authorities said Monday they had seized about 1.3 US tons of illegally harvested shark fins, a delicacy in some Asian countries that has placed the predatory creatures at grave risk.
  • Harvesting often involves catching sharks, removing their fins, and tossing them back into the ocean to die.
Peruvian authorities said Monday they had seized about 1.3 US tons of illegally harvested shark fins, a delicacy in some Asian countries that has placed the predatory creatures at grave risk.
The discovery was made at the warehouse of an export company from where they were to have been shipped, without the necessary license, to Asia, the Sunat customs agency said on X.
A report published in the journal Science in January said global shark populations were plummeting despite efforts to curb mass killings for their fins, eaten in soups in some cultures and considered a delicacy.
It is also believed in some countries, including China and Japan, to slow aging, improve appetite, aid memory and stimulate sexual desire.
Harvesting often involves catching sharks, removing their fins, and tossing them back into the ocean to die.
According to the Pew Environment Group, between 63 million and 273 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins and other parts.
cm/ljc/ag/mlr/bjt