The “end of coal” is in sight, according to Britain — the host of the COP26 climate summit — after dozens of countries pledged to stop using coal and end the financing of fossil fuels. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from the Glasgow summit, weaning economies off coal won’t be easy — even for Britain itself.

Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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The “end of coal” is in sight, according to Britain, host of the COP26 climate summit, after dozens of countries pledged to stop using coal and end the financing of fossil fuels.

Burning coal is the single biggest contributor to climate change, accounting for about 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions, Britain said. At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, Thursday, more than 40 countries pledged to phase out coal entirely. 

The signatories included big coal consumers such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Poland and Ukraine. They, alongside several global banks and financial institutions, also committed to ending all investment in new coal power generation.

End of coal 

COP26 President Alok Sharma hailed the agreement as a major step toward combating global warming.

“Today, we are publishing the Global Coal to Clean Power transition statement, a commitment to end coal investment, to scale up clean power, to make a just transition and phase out coal in the 2030s in major economies, and in the 2040s, elsewhere,” Sharma told delegates Thursday. 

“I think we can say that the end of coal is in sight,” he added. “The progress we’ve seen over the past two years would have seemed like a lofty ambition when we took on the COP presidency back in 2019. Who would have thought back then that today we’re able to say that we are choking off international coal financing, or that we would see a shift away from domestic coal power?” 

But the world’s biggest coal consumers, including China, the United States, Australia and India, did not sign the deal. Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, wrote on Twitter that without those countries, “there’s still a very real danger that the end won’t come soon enough.”

Separately, 25 countries, including the United States, also pledged to stop public financing for all overseas fossil fuel projects by the end of next year and to prioritize clean energy finance. Key Asian coal investors China, Japan and South Korea did not sign up. Katharina Rall, an environmental researcher at Human Rights Watch, criticized their absence. 

“Countries that choose not to sign on, including Japan and South Korea, are signaling a lack of regard for their human rights obligations and for the rights of communities around the world already facing a mounting toll from climate impacts,” she said. 

Accusations of hypocrisy 

Britain has also been accused of hypocrisy as it considers opening a new mine to produce coking coal for steelmaking. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently voiced opposition to the plan but said it was a planning matter for local government.

Mike Starkie, mayor of Copeland Borough Council in Cumbria, where the mine is planned, explained his support for the project. 

“The coal that will be extracted from this mine is exclusively for the use of making steel, and if we are going to have the green industrial revolution that we need in developing solar, wind, wave — and certainly here we’d love to develop more nuclear — it’s all going to take significant amounts of steel,” Starkie told The Associated Press. 

“And if the coal that produces the steel is not mined here, we’re going to be shipping it in from around the world, leaving a huge transport carbon footprint from mines that aren’t net-zero extraction, like the most modern mine that will ever be built, here in Whitehaven,” he said.

Britain is also considering the development of a new oil field off Scotland’s Shetland Islands, north of Glasgow, the host city of the climate summit. 

Emissions rebound 

A new report warns that emissions of carbon dioxide have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.

“The rebound is caused by emissions from coal and gas, which grew more in 2021 than they had fallen in 2020. And behind this, we see a rapid rise in emissions in China, particularly pushed by probably economic stimulus packages, whereas other countries have tended to follow the trajectory pre-pandemic of decreasing emissions in the U.S. and Europe and increasing emissions in India,” Corinne Le Quéré a professor at the University of East Anglia and co-author of the report, told the AP. 

The International Energy Agency said Thursday that if all the commitments made at COP26 so far were fully implemented, global warming would be limited to below 2 degrees Celsius — a significant improvement on the 2.7 degrees Celsius rise the U.N. forecasted before the summit. 

 
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An Earth-flight giant contributes to NASA’s upcoming moon missions. Plus, words from the next crew to visit the International Space Station and grim news from NASA about the future of food on Earth. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us the Week in Space.
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In the fight to curb climate change, several major coal-using nations announced steps Thursday to wean themselves — at times slowly — off of the heavily polluting fossil fuel.

The pledges to phase out coal come on top of other promises made at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, that the head of an international energy organization said trimmed several tenths of a degree from projections of future warming. But outside experts called that optimistic.

Optimism also abounded in relation to the promises on coal, which has the dirtiest carbon footprint of the major fuels and is a significant source of planet-warming emissions.

“Today, I think we can say that the end of coal is in sight,” said Alok Sharma, who is chairing the conference of nearly 200 nations, known as COP26.

Critics say that vision is obscured by a lot of smoke because several major economies have yet to set a date for ending their dependence on the fuel, including the United States, China, India and Japan — which was targeted outside the summit venue Thursday by protesters clad as animated characters.

What nations have promised varies. Some have pledged to quit coal completely at a future date, while others say they’ll stop building new plants, and even more, including China, are talking about just stopping the financing of new coal plants abroad.

The British government said pledges of new or earlier deadlines for ending coal use came from more than 20 countries including Ukraine, Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia and Chile.

Some came with notable caveats, such as Indonesia’s request for additional aid before committing to bring its deadline forward to the 2040s.

Meanwhile, Poland, the second-biggest user of coal in Europe after Germany, appeared to backtrack on any ambitious new commitments within hours of the announcement.

“Energy security and the assurances of jobs is a priority for us,” Anna Moskwa, Poland’s minister for climate and environment, said in a tweet, citing the government’s existing plan which “provides for a departure from hard coal by 2049.” Earlier in the day, it had seemed that Poland might bring that deadline forward by at least a decade.

Campaigners reacted angrily to the apparent U-turn.

“Moskwa has underscored that her government cannot be trusted to sign a postcard, let alone a responsible climate pledge,” said Kathrin Gutmann, campaign director of the group Europe Beyond Coal.

Separately, more than two dozen countries, cities and companies joined the Powering Past Coal Alliance, whose members commit to ending coal use by 2030, for developed countries, and no later than 2050 for developing ones. Banks that are members pledge not to provide loans for the worst types of coal-fired power plants.

Meanwhile, the United States, Canada, Denmark and several other nations signed a different pledge to prioritize funding clean energy over fossil fuel projects abroad.

While not completely ruling out financial support for coal-fired power plants, the countries said they would refrain from any “new direct public support” for coal except in limited circumstances.

That move was seen as a significant step by environmental campaigners, who said that it could push international lenders to stop providing loans for new fossil fuel projects.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss officials’ thinking, said that while the U.S. hadn’t opted to join the coal phase-out pledges, its commitment to a clean energy future was clear. The Biden administration wants to reach 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035.

Underlining the urgent need for action on coal, a new analysis by scientists at Global Carbon Project found emissions from the fuel increased dramatically in 2021, not just from pandemic-struck 2020 levels, but even when compared to pre-pandemic 2019 levels. The world spewed 14.7 billion metric tons (16.2 billion tons) of carbon dioxide from coal burning, 5.7% more than last year, said the group, which tracks annual carbon pollution.

That was mostly spurred by a dramatic increase in China, which hit a new peak of coal emissions this year of 7.6 billion metric tons (8.4 billion tons) of carbon dioxide, more than half the globe’s coal emissions, the report said.  

Still, experts said the announcement and others made so far at the summit showed the growing momentum to ditch coal.

“Today’s commitments will help to shift whole continents on their journey to phase out coal,” said Dave Jones of the energy think tank Ember.

Ukraine, the third-biggest coal consumer in Europe, is bringing forward its coal deadline, from 2050 to 2035.

Coal production in Ukraine has dropped significantly over the past few years: From 40.9 million metric tons in 2016 to 28.8 million in 2020 (45 million tons to 32 million), according to the Energy Ministry.

The figures do not include production in the coal fields of separatist-controlled eastern Ukraine, which accounted for about half of Ukraine’s mines before the 2014 uprising.  

“The progress on coal being shown at COP26 demonstrates that the conditions are ripe for a global coal exit,” said Leo Roberts, a senior researcher at the environmental think tank E3G.

“We now need to see the incoming massive scale-up in clean energy finance made available quickly to ensure all countries can confidently move from coal to clean,” he added.

But some environmental activists said the commitments didn’t go far enough.

“Emissions from oil and gas already far outstrip coal and are booming, while coal is already entering a terminal decline,” said Murray Worthy of the campaign group Global Witness. “This is a small step forwards when what was needed was a giant leap.”  

The agreements on coal are not part of the formal negotiations at the U.N. talks in Glasgow. But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose country is hosting the conference, had said he wanted to see deals on coal, cars, trees and cash.

Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency, said Thursday that a new analysis by the Paris-based body shows that fully achieving all the emissions-reduction pledges made on previous days — including for the potent greenhouse gas methane — could allow the world to limit warning to 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

The goal that countries set at a previous conference in Paris is to limit temperature increases to 1.5C (2.7F). A United Nations analysis showed that before Glasgow the world was heading to a 2.7C (4.9F) increase while other analyses showed warming in the mid- to upper-2-degree range also.

Niklas Hohne, of the New Climate Institute and Climate Action Tracker, called Birol’s figure optimistic and noted it was based on countries achieving pledges to only emit what can be absorbed — so called net-zero plans — when they haven’t yet implemented any actions that would get them there.
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The World Health Organization’s regional director for Europe said Thursday the continent is now the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, accounting for 59 percent of all cases globally.

At a virtual news briefing from Copenhagen, Hans Kluge said the current pace of transmission across the region’s 53 countries is of grave concern. He said new cases are approaching record levels, with the delta variant of the coronavirus driving the surge.

Kluge said his agency’s latest data shows hospitalizations in the region more than doubled in one week.

He noted officials are seeing increasing trends across all age groups, but that the rapid increase in the older population is of the most concern. He said this is translating into more people having severe cases and dying, with 75 percent of the deaths among persons aged 65 or older.

Kluge said one reliable projection indicates that at the current pace, Europe could see another half a million COVID-19 deaths by the first of February. COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus.

He also cited uneven vaccination rates and the relaxation of public health and social measures throughout the region as the cause of the surge.

While a billion doses of vaccine have been distributed, in Europe, only 47 percent of the total population are fully vaccinated. He says in eight nations, at least 70 percent of the people have been inoculated fully. Kluge notes the rate remains below 10 percent in two other countries.

Kluge encouraged nations with low vaccination rates to increase coverage, particularly among priority groups such as the elderly. He urged nations with high vaccination rates and ample supply to share with less fortunate nations.

He also said that vaccines are most effective when used with other preventive measures, such as social distancing and mask-wearing. Kluge said if the region achieved universal mask use, 188,000 lives could be saved between now and February.

The WHO region chief said, “We must change our tactics, from reacting to surges” of COVID-19 to “preventing them from happening in the first place.” 

 
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Britain has granted conditional approval to the first pill shown to effectively treat COVID-19.

The pill, molnupiravir, was jointly developed by the U.S. pharmaceutical companies Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.

Data showed the drug, when given orally during the onset of COVID-19 symptoms, could cut COVID-related deaths and hospitalizations in half among people at high risk of developing severe illness, according to Reuters.

Also watch:

Britain’s drug regulator recommended that it be administered as soon as possible to those 18 and older who test positive for COVID-19 and within five days of the onset of symptoms.

It was not immediately clear when the pill would be available in Britain.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in October a committee of independent experts would scrutinize the drug’s safety and effectiveness later this month. 

Regulators in the European Union and in other countries said they would also soon review the drug.

Some information in this report also came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Spain faces a fresh energy crisis after Algeria shut off supplies of natural gas through one of the two pipelines linking Spain with the North African state.

Like many other European countries, Spain has been hit hard by soaring electricity prices in recent months.

A surge in demand as the world’s economies began to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic has not been matched by supply, sending prices climbing.

Households have been hit by electricity prices which rose more than 40% in the past year, prompting the Spanish government to bring in emergency measures to reduce bills.

Now the fresh crisis over natural gas supplies from their North African neighbors has added to tensions in the energy market for Spain.

Algeria closed a land pipeline Sunday after a diplomatic dispute with its neighbor Morocco, through which the pipeline passes.

Algiers agreed to keep open a second pipeline which passes under the Mediterranean to Spain, but this does not supply as much natural gas as the land pipeline through Morocco.

Without any natural energy source except the burgeoning renewables market, Spain depends on Algeria for its natural gas supply.

Spain’s geographic isolation in western Europe and lack of any domestic source of energy has left it especially vulnerable.

The Spanish media have reported that the country could face possible blackouts because of energy shortages.

El Pais, a Spanish-language daily newspaper, reported Tuesday that Spain would have to deliver liquified natural gas, or LNG, supplies by ship which could prove costly as other countries are competing for the same supplies because of a world shortage of the energy source.

Spain’s government sought to cool fears over a possible energy shortage. 

During an interview Tuesday on state broadcaster TVE, Spain’s environment minister, Teresa Ribera, said the country has accumulated natural gas reserves equivalent to 43 days of consumption.

She added that Algeria agreed to supply more gas to Spain if the latter needed it.

Enagas, a Spanish company which owns and operates the country’s energy grid and is one of the biggest LNG transporters in western Europe, said in a statement, “There are no objective signs of a situation of lack of gas supplies in the coming months.”

Algeria said it was planning to stop shipments through the Gaz-Maghreb-Europe pipeline which traverses Morocco and carries about 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) per year.

Algiers took this step after cutting diplomatic ties with Morocco in August and accusing its leadership of taking “hostile actions.” Algeria further accused Morocco of aiding the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie, a regional nationalist movement in Algeria, of starting a series of fires which ravaged the country, an accusation which Morocco denied.

Algeria’s decision to shut off a pipeline comes as natural gas prices have soared in recent months across Europe because of a shortage of supplies from Russia, pushing up electricity bills for consumers.

Spain hopes that it can weather the storm by using deliveries of natural gas from the Medgaz pipeline which passes under the Mediterranean directly from Algeria to Spain.

This line carries about eight billion cubic meters per year of gas but planned works could see its capacity rise to 10.5 billion cubic meters per year by January.

Algeria also proposes increasing LNG deliveries by sea.

Analysts said that events in North Africa did not help a difficult situation in the world energy market as supplies to Europe were restricted by Russia, the continent’s most important supplier of natural gas.

“The most important factor is Russia because it is restricting supply. Demand is going up because economies are recuperating but supply is not rising because the primary supplier for Europe is Russia,” Massimo Maoret, associate professor of strategic management at IESE business school in Madrid, told VOA.

“On top of that you have the situation in Algeria which is creating more uncertainty. Algeria has promised that supply will be ensured. It is an additional strain on dynamics which are building on global tensions.”

Political pressure has mounted on the Spanish government after electricity prices for consumers rose 44% over the past year, according to data from the National Institute for Statistics.

Professor Maoret said a harsh winter may exacerbate problems if demand increases.

Jorge Sanz, an analyst at Nera Economic Consulting, said supply was not in doubt so government reassurances were well founded. He did say prices may rise and could possibly affect consumers.

“The Medgaz pipeline will be expanded by New Year to ensure it carries 10.5 bcm (billion cubic meters), the same as the line which passes through Morocco. It is a temporary shortfall which can be covered by reserves,” he told VOA.

“However, what is in doubt is the price of natural gas which could go up — or it could go down — and this could be passed onto the electricity prices for consumers.”

Some information for this report comes from Reuters. 
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Russian special services have charged former journalist Ivan Safronov with selling information on Russian military operations in Syria for $248 to a political analyst who they say then passed it to German intelligence, Safronov’s lawyer said.

In a rare glimpse into the classified investigation against Safronov, lawyer Ivan Pavlov said the Syria-related charge had been added to the case against him for state treason, which his supporters say is part of a campaign to intimidate journalists.

Pavlov said the charge states that Safronov sold the information in 2015 to political analyst Demuri Voronin, who in turn passed it to Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency and to a Swiss university.

“According to the charges, Voronin paid him compensation of $248,” the lawyer wrote on social media, saying reporters in Russia could be accused of treason just for doing their job.

Safronov, a former defense reporter who later worked as an aide to the head of Russia’s space agency, was arrested last year and faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty. He denies wrongdoing.

Russian media reported on Monday that the investigation had been completed. The FSB intelligence service did not reply to a Reuters request for comment, while the BND declined to comment.

The main accusation against Safronov is that he passed military secrets to the Czech Republic in 2017 concerning Russian arms deliveries to the Middle East and Africa.

Nearly 100,000 people have signed an online petition accusing the authorities of cooking up fake proof of Safronov’s guilt under the cover of state secrecy which surrounds the case, something the Kremlin has denied.

Pavlov, one of a team of lawyers defending Safronov, fledRussia and moved to Georgia in September after coming under criminal investigation for disclosing classified information about the case.

Political analyst Voronin, who holds Russian and German citizenship, was arrested in Moscow in February on treason charges. His lawyer Maria Orlova denied these were linked to Safronov’s case, telling Reuters that Voronin did not admit guilt and refused to testify against himself.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced ambitious climate commitments at  the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland. He also slammed Chinese and Russian leaders for not doing their part. VOA’s White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara brings this report from Glasgow.

Produced by: Kimberlyn Weeks           

Anita Powell contributed to this report.
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China and Russia are set to introduce a joint resolution to the United Nations Security Council calling for an end to a host of economic sanctions on the isolated regime. 

Among the sanctions the two countries want lifted are a ban on North Koreans working overseas and sending home their earnings, exporting seafood and textiles and ending a cap on imports of refined petroleum. 

The draft resolution, obtained separately by the Associated Press and Reuters, urges the 15-member Security Council to remove the sanctions “with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population” of North Korea.   

The U.N. first imposed sanctions on North Korea in 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, which have grown even stronger with each test Pyongyang carries out in defiance of the international community and in spite of its worsening economic situation. 

The draft resolution says lifting the sanctions “underscores the necessity to respect the legitimate security concerns of the DPRK, and ensure the welfare, inherent dignity, and rights of people in the DPRK.” 

The resolution expands on one circulated by China and Russia in 2019 that was never introduced due to opposition by the United States and other Western nations.   

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.  
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CIA Director William Burns is making a rare visit to Moscow to discuss U.S.-Russia relations, the latest in a series of high-level contacts that show both sides want to keep talking despite mutual distrust and a long list of disputes. 

A U.S. Embassy spokesperson said Burns was leading a delegation of senior U.S. officials to Moscow on Tuesday and Wednesday at President Joe Biden’s request. 

“They are meeting with members of the Russian government to discuss a range of issues in the bilateral relationship,” the spokesperson said. 

Russia’s Security Council said Burns, a Russian-speaker and former ambassador to Moscow, held talks with Nikolai Patrushev, the council’s secretary and a former head of Russia’s FSB intelligence service. 

Neither side gave details of the conversation, but security issues loom large in their troubled relationship. 

Ties have hit a series of post-Cold War lows over issues including Russian-based cyberattacks against U.S. targets, Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the jailing of opposition politician Alexey Navalny and Russia’s behavior toward Ukraine, from which it seized the Crimea Peninsula in 2014. 

Biden sent a top Russia expert, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, to Moscow for talks last month that failed to yield any progress in a dispute between the two countries over the sizes of their respective embassies. 

Biden met Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in Geneva in June, and said at the time it would take six months to a year to find out whether the two countries could establish a meaningful strategic dialog. 

Putin frequently criticizes the United States but said last month he had established a constructive relationship with Biden. The Kremlin has said a further meeting between the two this year is a realistic possibility. 
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Human rights activists are expressing surprise at the failure of Israel and Switzerland to participate in a joint statement criticizing China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority. 

France delivered the statement on behalf of 43 countries at the United Nations last month. 

The two countries “have signed previous statements, especially Switzerland, which has always joined collective statements condemning atrocities in East Turkistan,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, who used the Uyghurs’ preferred name for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China in an interview with VOA. 

Varied responses to China and Uyghurs 

In the joint statement, France’s U.N. Ambassador Nicolas de Rivière said the signatory countries “are particularly concerned about the situation in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” He added that credible reports “indicate the existence of a large network of ‘political re-education’ camps where over a million people have been arbitrarily detained.”

The statement called on China to allow “immediate, meaningful and unfettered access” to Xinjiang for independent observers, including the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, rejected the joint criticism as “unfounded” and likened the signatory countries the “henchmen” of the United States.

“Xinjiang enjoys stability, development and prosperity, and the Chinese people’s life is getting better day by day,” Zhang said. “The Chinese people are satisfied with and proud of such achievements, and those achievements are widely recognized and praised by people around the world.”

Switzerland and Israel 

In June at the United Nations in Geneva, Israel and Switzerland joined 42 other countries in signing a joint statement concerning Uyghur human rights in China. 

But Switzerland’s foreign ministry spokesperson Pierre-Alain Eltschinger told VOA in an email that his country decided not to join in the latest statement because of various factors, including an upcoming “strategic dialogue” with China.

“Switzerland’s substantive position on China and human rights remains unchanged,” Eltschinger wrote. “Switzerland continues to be concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang and other parts of China.”

Eltschinger added that Switzerland assesses support for any joint statement on a case-by-case basis. “Switzerland will continue to join joint statements in the future when it deems it appropriate,” he said. 

Israel’s foreign ministry and the embassy of Israel in Washington did not respond to questions from VOA about its decision not to sign the October statement.

However, the Jewish Movement for Uyghur Freedom, a grassroots Jewish rights organization, suggested that the Israeli government is bargaining with China in order to “preserve” relations.

“It was on the right side of the Uyghur issue in June when it signed an earlier statement, and we call on [Israel] to reestablish this position,” the group said in an email to VOA.

Isa said it is not unprecedented at the United Nations for a country to shift its position on Uyghur human rights in the face of diplomatic pressure from China.

“During the last statement in June, Ukraine was initially part of the joint statement delivered by 44 U.N. member states. However, it withdrew its signature shortly after, because of the vaccine diplomacy that China exercised against Ukraine,” Isa said. 

Sixty-two countries including Cuba signed onto a joint statement opposing interference in China’s internal affairs in the name of human rights, according to Chinese state media. 
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Wealthy Russians didn’t delay their escape. 

Ahead of the imposition this week of new nationwide pandemic restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, they headed to Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Or to Black Sea resorts, such as Sochi, which was anticipating an influx this week of 100,000 tourists from northern Russia.

Travel agencies reported bookings soaring for tour packages. 

The Kremlin hopes the new restrictions, which will see Russians required to take paid leave from October 30 to November 7, will slow record infections and deaths. Russian officials have sought to discourage travel but to little avail.

Last week, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow, “Epidemiologists have raised concerns that many people are planning to go on trips and travel.”

Whether the weeklong involuntary public holiday will slow the pace of infections remains to be seen, say health experts. The latest wave of the pandemic — the country’s fourth and most deadly — has been fueled by widespread vaccine hesitancy. 

Only 32% percent of Russia’s population is fully vaccinated, and according to a survey published this week by the Levada Center, a Moscow-based pollster, half of the respondents said they are unafraid of contracting the coronavirus. And three out of four unvaccinated Russians aren’t planning to get inoculated, according to an opinion poll conducted last month by international pollster Gallup.

Former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev publicly warned Monday of the urgency of persuading more Russians to get vaccinated.

“If we do not find ways to convince people of their irresponsibility, even, to put it bluntly, their antisocial behavior, we will face even more difficult times,” he said. Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine is widely available. 

In the last few weeks, the number of recorded COVID-19 cases has risen inexorably, with records broken day after day. By ordering most state organizations and private businesses to stop work, except for those involved in maintaining critical infrastructure, the Kremlin hopes the trend can be reversed. 

Five regions — Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod, Perm, Samara and Voronezh — started the non-work period earlier than others and are likely to see their off-work period extended beyond November 7. The governor of Novgorod, Andrey Nikitin, has already announced he is prolonging the non-work period in his region by an additional week. 

“We’re extending the period of non-working days by one week, with the preservation of wages,” Nikitin announced Monday.

Rosstat, the Russian government’s statistics department, reported Friday that 201,945 people died from all causes during the month of September — a 45% jump from the same month in 2019. Excess deaths — a measure comparing fatalities from all causes to pre-pandemic levels — is seen by some experts as a more robust indicator of pandemic deaths, because the official coronavirus tallies leave out many people who died without being tested.

The Kremlin has been accused of playing down the COVID-19 death toll since the start of the pandemic. According to the official pandemic tally, 235,000 Russian deaths are COVID-related, the fourth-highest in the world. But excess deaths since the arrival of the coronavirus have reached almost 750,000.

Officially, more than 8.5 million infections have been recorded in the country since the pandemic struck. On Monday, Russia health officials reported more than 40,000 fresh coronavirus cases. 

The pressure on the country’s health service is mounting, which the Kremlin is now acknowledging. Some regions have reported oxygen shortages because of surging cases.

“Of course, the situation is not straightforward. Beds are filled to a large extent, and these days, the situation is not becoming easier,” Peskov told reporters in the Russian capital. “This is an excessive and extraordinary burden on our doctors, who are demonstrating heroism with what is happening.”

Shortly before he spoke, the state-run Tass news agency reported the Kremlin is planning to introduce a nationwide digital pass system similar to the European Union’s which will allow Russians to show proof of vaccination or recent recovery from the coronavirus. Entry to public buildings and events is likely to be restricted to those armed with a digital pass. Many regions have already implemented a pass system and have mandated vaccinations for their public workers.

Officials hope the digital pass system will undermine a roaring trade in counterfeit health certificates. The 47News outlet, which is based in St. Petersburg, reported this week on the sophisticated operations of counterfeiters who offer falsified COVID-19 test certificates. It said clients are charged 2,550 rubles ($36) to receive a fake negative test result within three hours; forged documents contain a QR code that links to a fake laboratory website. 
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Russia is increasing pressure on independent Russian media by legislating the systematic labeling of many of them as “foreign agents,” a category that in Russia is historically associated with the idea of “enemies of the state.” Jon Spier narrates this report from VOA’s Moscow bureau.
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Philanthropist Bill Gates says the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $350 million to help small farmers around the world grow crops that will adapt to climate change.

In an interview with VOA from Glasgow where he is attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference, Gates said the money will go to a seed consortium which will help farmers thrive in changing environments.

The interview was edited for brevity and clarity. 

Q: Help us visualize the scope of the problem when it comes to climate change. What are we facing and how much should we be concerned?

A: Well, climate change is one of the biggest challenges mankind has ever faced. Year by year, because of these carbon emissions, the climate will be getting hotter and that means, particularly anywhere near the equator, the ability to do outdoor farming or outdoor construction work will become impossible. And so that’ll really destabilize people who live in these tropical zones. And so we have to do two things: we have to stop those emissions, where there’s an ambitious goal to do that by 2050, and then in the meantime we need to help countries adapt to these changing weather conditions, for example, you know, giving them better seeds.  

Q: How are we going to know that COP 26 is a success? 

A: We’ve deeply engaged the private sector. We’ve identified the need for innovation and how we get every sector working together to drive that innovation. And we’re now paying significant effort to adaptation. And so those three things were not there in Paris. I’m not saying that the commitments here are good enough. We need to see over the next five years the same type of increased engagement on the different issues, you know, better policies, more private sector and more innovation, including the innovation that’s focused on the adaptation.

Q: What else are you referring to in terms of innovation? 

A: A number of countries are announcing increased resources, including President Biden. We’re announcing $350 million over the next three years for the seed consortium which is called the CG System. That makes the seeds for all the different countries and the big priority for that money will be seeds that can be even more productive despite the challenge of climate change.  

And so overall we expect that an additional billion dollars, including our money, will be committed to that effort. That has the potential to benefit literally hundreds of millions of these smallholder farmers. So probably won’t get the attention it deserves, but probably the biggest move for adaptation using innovation for that will be announced here. 

Q: What are your thoughts on the impact of climate change in underdeveloped countries, especially in a region like Africa?

A: Well, as you say, it’s a great injustice. And in fact, my interest in climate change came from seeing that through our agricultural work in Africa the farmers were often having a more difficult time. And so they’re already facing these difficulties, which will get significantly worse between now and the end of the century. And so I studied the issue of climate change and the Gates Foundation took on this adaptation as a big priority. That wasn’t getting much attention. So I joined together with some others to create the ‘Commission on Adaptation’ and we had …a lot of great participation and did a report that highlighted some of these key investments.  

Q: What do you think all of us can do to contribute to this global solution in fighting climate change?  

A: Well, certainly there are products that have lower emissions…In rich countries, you know, we are starting to have food indications of which kinds of food cause what emissions. And we have more and more electric cars. You know we have the ability to heat your home with what’s called an electric heat pump versus using a hydrocarbon like natural gas to your house. You know I would say that for the individual, political engagement is also important because this is a problem where we have to make near-term investments (and) even some short-term sacrifice to get the long-term benefit of having drastic climate change impacts. And so, educating people that this is very worth doing, particularly getting young people engaged.
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President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced a sweeping U.S. plan to reduce methane emissions, as leaders from more than 100 nations met for a second day of talks at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

Methane, the simplest hydrocarbon, is a gas that contributes directly to global warming, and is produced in the transport and production of coal, natural gas and oil. Livestock, landfills and agricultural practices also produce large amounts of the gas.

On Tuesday, the administration unveiled a plan that pulls together different sectors of the U.S. government — including the departments of energy, agriculture, transportation, housing and the interior –to cut emissions. This plan should bring the United States in line with a Global Methane Pledge, in which the world’s largest emitters aim to reduce overall methane emissions by 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.

“Cutting methane emissions is essential to keep global warming from breaching 1.5 C,” said Helen Mountford, vice president of climate and economics for the World Resources Institute. “This pledge from over 90 countries to cut methane emissions by at least 30% over the coming decade sets a strong floor in terms of the ambition we need globally. Strong and rapid action to cut methane emissions offers a range of benefits, from limiting near-term warming and curbing air pollution to improved food security and better public health.”

WATCH: Biden Says the U.S. is back to lead on climat​e change

These plans follow Monday’s announcements of new U.S. climate commitments that build on previous global agreements: the unveiling of plans for a $3 billion President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) to tackle climate awareness, financing and adaptation efforts, which are part of Biden’s broader climate financing package. But it is not certain the U.S. leader can deliver on that promise, which still needs congressional approval.

Additionally, Biden touted a raft of domestically focused legislation that aims to shore up American infrastructure while also cutting greenhouse gas pollution by well over one gigaton by 2030.

That legislation has occupied the U.S. Congress for months, with members of the legislative body negotiating fiercely throughout — but ultimately failing to bring the matter to a vote before Biden left for the summit last week.

The U.S. has faltered on its own climate commitments, with former President Donald Trump announcing in 2017 that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. That took effect November 2020, but Biden rejoined the deal on his first day in office.

The president’s critics note that some of his administration’s climate commitments are not as large as those promised by other developed nations. 

China opts out

On Monday, China’s leader announced his nation’s plans to address climate change — a plan that critics said fell short of making any new commitments to reduce emissions.

“Specific implementation plans for key areas such as energy, industry, construction and transport, and for key sectors such as coal, electricity, iron and steel, and cement will be rolled out, coupled with supporting measures in terms of science and technology, carbon sink, fiscal and taxation, and financial incentives,” President Xi Jinping said in a written address to the climate summit Monday, according to a copy posted by China’s Xinhua news agency.

Xi called on developed nations to both “do more themselves” and support developing nations in their climate efforts.

This year’s summit builds on a legally binding agreement that 196 parties, including the U.S., Russia and China, signed six years ago in Paris. The international treaty commits those countries to embark on emissions cuts that aim to limit the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over preindustrial levels.

(VOA’s Chris Hannas contributed to this story.)
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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected accusations French President Emmanuel Macron made about a scrapped $37 billion submarine deal. Macron has recently said Morrison lied when abandoning the submarine deal before Australia joined a new security pact with the United Kingdom and the United States known by its acronym AUKUS. 

The AUKUS alliance and Australia’s cancelation of a lucrative defense contract in favor of U.S.-built nuclear submarines caught Paris off guard. France felt betrayed. In protest, France temporarily recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra. Tensions remain. 

French President Emanuel Macron told reporters at the meeting of the G-20 grouping of industrialized nations that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had been deceitful despite the two countries enjoying a close relationship. 

“When we have respect, you have to behave in line and consistently with this value,” Macron said to reporters.

Morrison quickly denied he had lied. He insisted he had explained to Macron in June that the submarines to be supplied by French company Naval Group were not going to meet Australia’s military requirements. 

“I was very clear that what was going to be provided to us was not going to meet our strategic interest,” Morrison said.

News reports in Australia have described the dispute between Australia and France as a diplomatic disaster for Canberra and that the “damage looks uncontrollable.” 

Australian Opposition Senator Penny Wong, the shadow foreign affairs minister, believes Australia has been embarrassed by the French president’s allegations. 

“We have got a reputation as a nation for being straight-shooters. That is Australia’s reputation internationally. We do what we say. Mr. Morrison’s failure to be upfront, his failure to, as President Macron says, tell the truth is damaging our interests,” Wong said.

Mark Kenny is a professor at the Australian Studies Institute at the Australian National University. He says rarely are world leaders so openly criticized by their peers. 

“This was really quite a rare level of candor that we see and a very abrupt denunciation of the integrity of a fellow world leader by Emanuel Macron and I thought that was extraordinary,” Kenny said.

U.S. President Joe Biden also conceded that the United States was “clumsy” in its negotiations for a new alliance with Britain and Australia, which cost France billions of dollars. 

The AUKUS pact will allow Australia to become only the seventh country to have nuclear-powered submarines. The new fleet is not expected to be in service for decades, forcing Australia to potentially lease or buy vessels from the United States or Britain in the meantime. 
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Hopes are already fading that the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow will result in any new deal for a significant cut in global greenhouse gas emissions, after China and Russia declined to attend the conference and India’s pledges fell short of expectations. 

The summit got under way Monday as dozens of world leaders addressed the delegates, defending their performances on climate action and in some cases presenting new emissions targets.

Over 25,000 delegates are attending the two-week conference, including heads of state, government ministers, nongovernmental organizations, official observers and media.

Hundreds of protesters and members of the public are also gathering outside the secure “Blue Zone” on the banks of Glasgow’s River Clyde. The area has become official United Nations territory for the duration of the summit. 

Scientists have warned that a failure to agree to much deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions will result in catastrophic and irreversible climate change. 

Global warning

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres set a grim tone in his address to world leaders. 

“Our addiction to fossil fuels is pushing humanity to the brink. We face a stark choice: Either we stop it, or it stops us. And it’s time to say ‘enough.’ Enough of brutalizing biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves,” Guterres said. 

“The science is clear. We know what to do. First, we must keep the global goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius alive,” he added, referring to the goal of limiting the average global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. 

Will that warning be heeded?

India is the world’s third-biggest polluter. Hopes were high ahead of the summit that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would seek to grab the limelight in presenting ambitious new plans to cut emissions.

“Between now and 2030, India will reduce its total projected carbon emissions by 1 billion tonnes (metric tons). … By 2070, India will achieve the target of net-zero emissions,” Modi told delegates, describing the policies as “an unprecedented contribution by India towards climate action.” 

However, the target date of 2070 is 20 years later than the U.N. target of 2050. 

In his address Monday, U.S. President Joe Biden said “we only have a brief window” to fight climate change. Earlier this year, he had pledged that by the end of the decade, the U.S. would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50% or more below 2005 levels. 

While Biden was speaking in Glasgow, however, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, a fellow Democrat, said he did not yet fully support the $1.75 trillion bill in Congress that included more than $550 billion in climate spending. 

The White House also released on Monday its plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

No-shows 

Arguably, the biggest story of the summit is not what’s being said on stage but rather is who hasn’t shown up at all. President Xi Jinping of China, which is by far the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is not attending the summit. Xi offered a written statement calling on richer nations to do more to support developing countries in dealing with climate change, but he made no new significant pledges to cut emissions. 

Xi’s absence is a major setback, said China analyst Martin Thorley of the University of Exeter. “Xi Jinping’s no-show at COP26 is an important reality check for those who expect enlightened climate policy from the Chinese Communist Party.” 

Thorley continued, “Whilst it is argued that authoritarian rule gives the leadership more scope to implement ambitious climate policy, it also gives the leaders greater capacity to block out civil society pressure that in other parts of the world is driving change. … Though there is genuine concern about the climate in some quarters within the Party, the threat to the CCP’s supremacy by power shortages mean that continued reliance on coal will be tolerated,” he wrote in an email to VOA. 

“That Xi Jinping addressed COP26 in writing only will be a massive disappointment to organizers and campaigners alike. Until very recently, China was considered a genuine leader on climate change,” Thorley added.

Others argue that COP26 can make significant progress without Xi.

“(Xi’s absence) could be probably because they don’t have too much else to offer,” said Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, head of climate and energy at the World Wildlife Fund and the former president of the 2014 COP20 climate summit in Lima, Peru. 

“And probably they would prefer to avoid the pressure of being in a COP (climate summit); that could be the reality. But let’s recognize that Minister Xie (Xie Zhenhua, China’s special climate envoy), it’s probably his tenth COP. He’s a top-level officer of the Chinese government — I think that is a good signal. But for sure, we are missing President Xi,” he added. 

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, which is the world’s fourth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is also absent. 

Among climate campaigners at COP26, the disappointment is already palpable. 

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist who has inspired youth protests around the world, told a rally outside the summit, “This COP26 is so far just like the previous COPs. Add that has led us nowhere. They have led us nowhere. 

“Inside COP, there are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our futures seriously. Pretending to take the present seriously of the people who are being affected already today by the climate crisis. Change is not going to come from inside there,” she said. 

COP26 shouldn’t be written off so early, however, said Pulgar-Vidal. “To have finally a collective vision for the world that nobody’s doubting or questioning, I think it is a good thing. But now we need to have more clear actions, not only targets but more clear actions.”

Positives 

Not all hope was lost, however. According to The Associated Press, a coalition moved Monday to put $1.7 billion toward protecting Indigenous peoples and tropical forests in the coming four years. Involved are the governments of the U.S., United Kingdom, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands as well as 17 private investors including The Ford Foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies. 

Amid the bleak warnings from the speakers at the summit, Max Blain, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, said “we are seeing some positive signs so far” that leaders are understanding the seriousness of the situation, according to AP. 

“We expect to see countries to come forward with some more commitments” during the summit, Blain said. “We continue to encourage that those are ambitious, measurable targets that can be delivered particularly in the next decade.” 

The president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, also vowed to increase his country’s climate finance by half by 2023 as part of a global effort by wealthy countries to help developing nations combat and adapt to the changing climate, the AP reported. 

World leaders will address the summit again Tuesday, before most head back to their home countries, while the negotiations continue at ministerial level. COP26 is due to finish November 12, but it could run longer if it looks as though the talks will succeed in reaching a new climate deal. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press. 
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For months, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his aides have been raising expectations for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, which they are hosting in Glasgow. But heading into the two-week gathering they have been sounding far less confident.

In Rome at the G-20 summit Saturday, Johnson said the chances of a big enough agreement emerging from COP26, one really capable of containing global warming, were not much better than 50-50.

At the opening ceremony Monday of the critical climate-change talks, Johnson warned fellow leaders from nearly 200 countries that humanity has “long since run down the clock on climate change” and he cautioned that if we don’t get serious today, “it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

Earlier his foreign secretary, Liz Truss, said there is no certainty anyone would see the action needed from global leaders. It is “touch and go,” she said, and there will be “really intense negotiations” between leaders over the coming days. The summit represents a “massive opportunity” to “hold these leaders to account,” she added.

A few months ago, Johnson, who by nature prefers the role of optimistic booster, appeared much cheerier about the prospects for COP26, talking breezily about how Britain will use the presidency of COP26 “to galvanize ambitious global action on climate change.” But British ministers and officials now admit it is uncertain whether Britain as host will be able to secure the deals adequate enough to curb irreversible climate change at COP26.

Under the Paris Agreement on climate change made at COP21, nations agreed on the need to limit warming to two degrees and ideally 1.5 above pre-industrial levels. It left them to develop their own action plans and to review them every five years.

At Glasgow, the summiteers will formally review the action plans and evaluate how successful they have been.

Falling short

The review will almost certainly highlight nations have fallen far short of their commitments and goals and that sobering assessment is partly at root of Johnson’s uncharacteristic gloom on the eve of COP26, say British officials.

While noting whatever is agreed at Glasgow “will never be enough to satisfy climate activists,” The Times of London newspaper editorialized Sunday: “You can almost hear the thudding of expectations such is the vigor with which they are being lowered ahead of the COP26 climate summit.”

One source of worry is the absence of two key global leaders. President Xi Jinping of China, the leader of the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, isn’t attending in person. And neither will Vladimir Putin of Russia, another big polluter.

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been listed among the global leaders expected to speak at the conference Monday, pulled out at the last minute, traveling back to Turkey from the G-20 summit in Rome instead of heading to Glasgow, and giving no reason for his unscheduled return, according to Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency. Later a dispute over security arrangements was cited by aides for his absence.

But the major source for alarm is the scale of the challenge and the huge scope of the action needed to be taken to curb the rise in temperature. “COP26 is a critical summit for global climate action,” says Anna Åberg, a research analyst at Britain’s Chatham House.

“To have a chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees, global emissions must halve by 2030 and reach ‘net-zero’ by 2050. The 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report underscores it is still possible to achieve the 1.5-degree-target, but only if unprecedented action is taken now,” she adds.

She explains that the action plans countries submitted in 2015 were not ambitious enough to limit global warming. The signatories of the Paris Agreement are expected to submit at Glasgow new pledges. One of the main ‘benchmarks for success’ in Glasgow is that as many governments as possible submit new plans and “when put together, these are ambitious enough to put the world on track for ‘well below’ 2 degrees, preferably 1.5.”

Eighty-six countries along with the European Union’s 27 member states have submitted new action plans.

“A successful outcome in Glasgow also requires developed countries to honor a promise they made back in 2009 of mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 to support climate action in developing countries. The official figures for 2020 will not be available until 2022, but it is clear the goal was not met last year,” she says.

On this score — as well as other key issues — the G-20 summit of leaders held Saturday and Sunday in Rome did not prompt optimism. Leaders of poorer and smaller nations had hoped to see far more emerge from the Rome summit.

There was progress in terms of a significant pledge to reach net zero emissions by around the middle of the century but Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, remained disappointed. “From what I’ve seen it appears we are going to overshoot 1.5C. We are very concerned about that,” he told reporters.

Sonam Wangdi, chair of the Least Developed Countries group, said: “The progress is definitely not enough up to now. We are a long way from a 1.5C pathway. We need them to ramp up ambition.”

Climate activists and scientists say the Glasgow conference needs to see a commitment to large and fast reductions in methane emissions, too, and much more detailed planning for adaptation and resilience so countries, developed and developing, are better able to withstand climate shocks and extreme weather events.

COP26 will set the climate agenda for decades to come and much will hinge on the developed countries stepping up and ratcheting up their efforts. But in the meantime, the leaders of the richer nations are also facing a cash crunch and an energy crisis, both partly thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, and some economists have been warning that in the pledge-making rush, Western political leaders are making climate promises they are unlikely to be able to keep without major economic damage and electoral consequences. 

The huge transformation that is going to be needed, and the large costs involved, most of which are likely to be shouldered by Western taxpayers and households, is a challenge for even the richest of countries to pull off. British economist Liam Halligan, among others, questions whether meeting ambitious climate action targets are possible without derailing economies already struggling to regain footing in the wake of a pandemic that has disrupted supply chains, roiled energy markets and boosted inflation.

Policymakers face a trade-off between the high upfront cost of moving quickly toward net zero carbon targets, and the long-term damage to economic growth caused by climate change, if they delay action, say analysts. Glasgow will likely highlight that dilemma.
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