BILLINGS: A warming planet and changes to land use patterns mean more wildfires will scorch large parts of the globe in coming decades, causing spikes in unhealthy smoke pollution and other problems that governments are ill prepared to confront, according to a UN report released Wednesday.
The Western US, northern Siberia, central India, and eastern Australia already are seeing more blazes, and the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires globally could increase by a third by 2050 and more than 50 percent by the turn of the century, according to the report from the United Nations Environment Program.
Areas once considered safe from major fires won’t be immune, including the Arctic, which the report said was “very likely to experience a significant increase in burning.”
Tropical forests in Indonesia and the southern Amazon of South America also are likely to see increased wildfires, the report concluded.
“Uncontrollable and devastating wildfires are becoming an expected part of the seasonal calendars in many parts of the world,” said Andrew Sullivan, with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, one of the report’s authors.
The report describes a worsening cycle: Climate change brings more drought and higher temperatures that make it easy for fires to start and spread, and in turn those blazes release more climate-changing carbon into the atmosphere as they burn through forests and peatland.
Some areas including parts of Africa are seeing decreasing wildfires, in part because more land is being devoted to agriculture, said report co-author Glynis Humphrey from the University of Cape Town.
But UN researchers said many nations continue to spend too much time and money fighting fires and not enough trying to prevent them. Land use changes can make the fires worse, such as logging that leaves behind debris that can easily burn and forests that are intentionally ignited to clear land for farming, the report said.
Poor communities are often hit hardest by fires, which can degrade water quality, destroy crops and reduce land available to grow food.
“It impacts people’s jobs and the economic situation that people are in,” Humphrey said. “It’s integral that fire be in the same category of disaster management as floods and droughts. It’s absolutely essential.”
In the United States, officials recently unveiled a $50 billion effort to reduce fire risks over the next decade by more aggressively thinning forests around “hot spots” where nature and neighborhoods collide. Only some of that work has funding so far — about $3 billion over five years under the recently passed federal infrastructure bill, according to officials in President Joe Biden’s administration.
Critics of the administration’s plan say it continues to put too much emphasis on fighting some fires that can be useful to clear out underbrush when the flames remain relatively small and don’t threaten houses.
The UN researchers also called for more awareness of the dangers from wildfire smoke inhalation, which can affect tens of millions of people annually as plumes from major wildfires drift thousands of miles across international borders.
UN: Wildfires getting worse globally, governments unprepared
https://arab.news/6a5st
UN: Wildfires getting worse globally, governments unprepared
- The Western U.S., northern Siberia, central India, and eastern Australia already are seeing more blazes
- Tropical forests in Indonesia and the southern Amazon of South America also are likely to see increased wildfires
UN bids to salvage global development summit after US boycott
- Critics say the promises at the heart of the conference are nowhere near bold enough
Despite the scorching temperatures, though, a major chill looms over the event – the decision early this month by the United States, traditionally the world’s largest aid giver and key finance provider, not to show up.
UN countries want to close a $4 trillion-a-year funding gap they now estimate prevents the developing world achieving the organization’s Sustainable Development Goals that range from cutting infant death rates to minimizing global warming.
Critics say the promises at the heart of the conference – called the “Seville Commitment” – are nowhere near bold enough.
The measures, agreed by consensus after a year of tough negotiations, include tripling multilateral lending capacity, debt relief, a push to boost tax-to-GDP ratios to at least 15 percent, and shifting special IMF money to countries that need it most.
The run-up, however, has been marred by the US decision to withdraw over what it said was the crossing of a number of its red lines, including the push to triple development bank lending, change tax rules and the use of the term “gender” in summit wording.
The European Union only joined the summit with reservations, particularly over how debt is discussed within the UN.
Speaking to reporters this week, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed described Washington’s boycott as “regrettable,” especially after its “catastrophic” recent aid cuts that she said had cost lives and livelihoods.
Speaking alongside officials from summit host Spain and Zambia, which has helped organize it, she said the final outcome document agreed reflected both “ambition and realism” and that the UN would try to re-engage the US afterwards.
Remy Rioux, chief executive officer of the French Development Agency, said Washington’s withdrawal had not been a total surprise given Donald Trump’s views. The hope is that agreements next week will allow bolder action at the UN climate talks in Brazil in November.
“We will push for the new framework... (and) its operationalization from Seville to Belem,” he added, referring to the Brazilian city that will host COP30.
Aid in decline
Other measures to be announced include multilateral lenders automatically giving vulnerable countries the option to insert repayment break clauses into their loans in case of hurricane, drought or flood.
Another buzz phrase will be a “Global SDR playbook” – a plan where the wealthiest countries rechannel the IMF’s reserve-like Special Draw Rights they hold to the multilateral banks, who then leverage them as capital in order to lend more.
Campaigners warn that it will fall far short of what is needed, especially as more than 130 countries now face critically high debt levels and many spend more on repayments than on health or education.
Aid and support from rich countries, who themselves have rising debts, is dropping too.
In March, the US slashed more than 80 percent of programs at its USAID agency following federal budget cuts spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk. Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden have all made cuts in recent years too.
The OECD projects a 9 percent–17 percent drop in net official development assistance (ODA) in 2025, following a 9 percent decline in 2024.
It looks set to hit the poorest countries hardest: bilateral ODA to least developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa may fall by 13-25 percent and 16-28 percent respectively, the OECD estimates, and health funding could drop by up to 60 percent from its 2022 peak.
So what would be a good outcome in Seville, especially given the US pull-out?
“We should make sure we are not backtracking at this point,” said Orville Grey at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, referring to funding commitments. “We should at least remain stable.”
Philippines VP Duterte must go on trial due to severity of charges, prosecutors say
- Duterte is facing removal from her post and a lifetime ban from office if convicted
MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte must be tried, and ultimately convicted, over serious charges, including an alleged threat to have the president killed, prosecutors argued in a submission to a Senate impeachment court on Friday. Duterte is facing removal from her post and a lifetime ban from office if convicted. She has denied wrongdoing and maintains her impeachment is politically motivated and the result of an acrimonious falling out between her and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Lower house prosecutors said the weight of the evidence against Duterte justifies a full-blown trial, rejecting her defense that the allegations against her in an impeachment complaint were unsubstantiated. “The severity of the charges leaves no room for technical evasion. A trial is not only warranted but necessary to reinforce justice, uphold democratic principles, and affirm that no individual, regardless of rank of influence, stands above the law,” they said in their response to Duterte’s defense.
“It is obvious from a simple reading of (Duterte’s response), which relies on misleading claims and baseless procedural objections, that the only legal strategy of the defense is to have the case dismissed and avoid trial,” the prosecutors said. Duterte, who was impeached by the lower house in February, has described the impeachment complaint as unconstitutional and “nothing more than a scrap of paper.” Included in the complaint were allegations she misused public funds while vice president and education secretary and had plotted to assassinate Marcos, the first lady and the house speaker based on remarks during a November press conference about hiring an assassin.
Duterte’s impeachment is widely seen in the Philippines as part of a broader power struggle ahead of the 2028 election, which Marcos cannot contest due to a single-term limit for presidents and will likely seek to groom a successor to protect his legacy. Marcos has distanced himself from the impeachment.
Duterte, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, is expected to run for the presidency in 2028 if she survives the impeachment and would be a strong contender.
Global tensions rattle COP30 build-up but ‘failure not an option’
- A warm up UN climate event in Germany that concluded on Thursday saw disputes flare over a range of issues, including finance, adding to anxiety about how much headway COP30 can make
BONN: This year’s UN COP30 summit in Brazil was hotly-anticipated as a pivotal moment for the planet, as the world fast approaches a key global warming threshold.
But the hosts are yet to propose a headline ambition for the marathon November talks, raising concerns they could fall flat.
The build-up has been overshadowed by devastating conflicts on three continents and the US withdrawal from global cooperation on climate, trade and health.
Expectations have dimmed since Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s pitch three years ago to host climate talks in the Amazon.
A warm-up UN climate event in Germany that concluded on Thursday saw disputes flare over a range of issues, including finance, adding to anxiety about how much headway COP30 can make.
Brazil is a deft climate negotiator, but the “international context has never been so bad,” said Claudio Angelo, of the Brazilian organization Climate Observatory.
Given the stakes, former UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa said Brazil may have to make do with “baby steps.”
“One of the main messages that should be coming out of COP30 is the unity of everyone behind multilateralism and international cooperation. Not achieving that means everybody will suffer,” she told AFP.
“Failure is not an option in this case.”
Previous COPs have been judged on the deals clinched between the nearly 200 nations that haggle over two weeks to advance global climate policy.
Recent summits have produced landmark outcomes, from a global pledge to transition away from fossil fuels, to the creation of a specialized fund to help countries hit by climate disaster.
COP30 CEO Ana Toni said that “most of the big flashy topics” born out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change had been dealt with.
That leaves Brazil with an arguably harder challenge — trying to ensure what has been agreed is put into practice.
Much of the action is set for the COP30 sidelines or before nations arrive in the Amazonian city of Belem.
National climate plans due before COP30 from all countries — but most importantly major emitters China, the European Union and India — will be more consequential than this year’s negotiations, experts say.
It is expected this latest round of national commitments will fall well short of containing global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, and possibly even 2C, the less ambitious of the Paris accord’s climate goals.
“I expect that the COP will need to react to that,” said Ana Toni, although what form that reaction would take was “under question.”
Uncertainty about how COP30 will help steer nations toward 1.5C has left the Alliance of Small Island States bloc “concerned,” said lead negotiator Anne Rasmussen.
“Our survival depends on that,” she told AFP.
How countries will make good on their promise to transition away from fossil fuels may also become a point of contention.
Angelo said he hoped Brazil would champion the idea, included in the country’s climate plan, of working toward “schedules” for that transition.
But he likened Brazil’s auctioning of oil and gas extraction rights near the mouth of the Amazon river this month — just as climate negotiators got down to business in Bonn — to an act of “sabotage.”
Another key priority for Brazil is forest protection, but otherwise COP30 leaders have mostly focused on unfinished business from previous meetings, including fleshing out a goal to build resilience to climate impacts.
According to the hosts of last year’s hard-fought climate talks, global tensions might not leave room for much else.
“We need to focus more on preserving the legacy that we have established, rather than increasing ambition,” said Yalchin Rafiyev, top climate negotiator for COP29 host Azerbaijan.
He fears that trying and failing to do more could risk undermining the whole UN process.
Those close to the climate talks concede they can move frustratingly slowly, but insist the annual negotiations remain crucial.
“I don’t think there’s any other way to address a threat to humanity as big as this is,” Espinosa told AFP.
Eel-eating Japan opposes EU call for more protection
- Japanese media have reported that the EU could soon propose that all eel species be added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species which limits the trade of protected species
TOKYO: Japan’s agriculture minister said Friday the country would oppose any call by the European Union to add eels to an endangered species list that would limit trade in them.
Eel is eaten worldwide but is particularly popular in Japan, where is called “unagi” and traditionally served grilled after being covered in a sticky-sweet sauce.
Minister Shinjiro Koizumi told reporters that the country carefully manages stock levels of the Japanese eel in cooperation with neighboring China, Taiwan and South Korea.
“There is a sufficient population, and it faces no extinction risk due to international trade,” he said.
Japanese media have reported that the EU could soon propose that all eel species be added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) which limits trade of protected animals.
There are 19 species and subspecies of eel, many of them now threatened due to a range of factors including pollution and overfishing.
In 2014, the Japanese eel was listed as endangered, but not critically endangered, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which cited factors including habitat loss, overfishing, pollution and migration barriers.
Protecting the animal is complicated by their complex life cycle, which unfolds over a vast area, and the many unknowns about how they reproduce.
US envoy leaves Russia as detente faltering
- Moscow earlier this week accused Washington of not being ‘ready’ to take steps to restore the normal functioning of their embassies
MOSCOW: The US ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, is departing Moscow, leaving Washington without a top envoy in the country as a rapprochement being pushed by US President Donald Trump falters.
Moscow earlier this week accused Washington of not being “ready” to take steps to restore the normal functioning of their embassies, hobbled by years of tit-for-tat restrictions and expulsions of diplomats.
Trump has not yet nominated a successor to Tracy, the first woman to hold the post and who was appointed by ex-President Joe Biden and is leaving after two-and-a-half years in the role.
Trump has overhauled Biden’s policy of isolating Vladimir Putin over his Ukraine offensive, holding several calls with the Kremlin chief and raising the prospect of boosting bilateral ties.
“I am proud to have represented my country in Moscow during such a challenging time,” Tracy said in a message posted by the embassy on social media.
She also quoted lines from a poem by Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s famed national poet.
Diplomats from the two countries have held several rounds of negotiations under Trump on issues ranging from the Ukraine conflict and prisoner exchanges to normalizing embassy operations.
But on Wednesday the Kremlin accused Washington of being “not yet ready” to remove barriers to the work of their respective diplomatic missions.
Trump has shown increasing frustration with Putin over his refusal to end Moscow’s three-year offensive on Ukraine.
Since the Republican returned to the White House, Putin has repeatedly rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire, demanded Kyiv cede more territory, urged his troops to keep advancing and escalated deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukraine.
