A new climate reality emerges
With the world already 1.2 degrees hotter than pre-industrial times, scientists believe warming this century will most likely fall to about two or three degrees. A United Nations report released this week ahead of the COP27 climate conference in Egypt confirms that range. Decarbonisation has made the most feared predictions impossible, while the most hopeful predictions have been heralded by disastrous delays.
That scenario is an improvement over previous predictions, but it’s still turned into serious disruption. With every fraction of warming, tens of millions of people worldwide will face life-threatening heat waves, food and water scarcity, and flooding. Globally, unified action on climate change continues to be a challenge.
According to the International Energy Agency: The energy crisis caused by war has the potential to accelerate the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies. But that change is not happening fast enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming, the agency said.
Analysis: “It is remarkable that many of these new clean energy goals are not being realized solely for the sake of climate change,” said Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA. “Increasingly, the big drivers are energy security as well as industrial policy – many countries want to be at the forefront of future energy industries.”
Putin against ‘Western elites’
In a speech seems to be aimed at conservatives outside RussiaPresident Vladimir Putin said that Russia’s battle is with “Western elites”, not with the West itself. Many of the themes of his speech were familiar, but they resonated especially because of the growing dissent, in the United States and internationally, about the costs of war.
“There are at least two Wests,” Putin said, contrasting what he considers one of his “traditional, mostly Christian values” to something “aggressive, cosmopolitan, neo-colonial, acts as a weapon of the neoliberal class” and tries to impose its “rather strange” values on the rest of the world.
Putin described Russia as threatened by NATO’s expansion and the bloc’s values of liberal democracy, but denied reports that Moscow was preparing to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. “We don’t need to do this,” he said. “It makes no sense for us, politically or militarily.”
Analysis: “This is a trick – it shouldn’t relax anyone,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a Russian political analyst, noting that Putin has blamed the West and its support. this country to Ukraine for any escalation in the war. “His goal is to show that escalation is the product of Western policies.”
In other news from the war:
Cloudy economic forecast
The US economy grew slowly over the summer, adding to fears of a potential recession while at the same time hold the hope of survival that one can avoid. And in Europe, the European Central Bank imposed another big rate hike yesterdayas policymakers try to quickly quell the region’s record-high inflation.
In the US, gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, rose 0.6 percent after six months of decline, slightly beating forecasters’ expectations. That suggests that a path to a “soft landing,” in which policymakers cool off heating demand without sacrificing a full recovery, remains open, but narrow. .
Forecasts in Europe, where prices continue to rise, are less optimistic. “During the winter, it will also become increasingly clear that the eurozone economy has entered a significant recession,” economists at Berenberg bank predict. They expect policymakers to raise rates only two more times.
Ripple effect: The US Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike has hurt other currencies – including Japan, China and India – by making it more difficult for foreign borrowers with US dollar debt to repay.
Can quote: “Ignore the headline numbers – growth is slowing,” said Michael Gapen, chief economist at Bank of America. “There won’t be much need to slow down from here on to push the economy into a recession.”
LATEST NEWS
Around the world
‘Two nights before Christmas, and all over Mars, not a single creature is stirring’, against the starry backdrop.
Until things rocked, that is. A highly sensitive NASA seismometer carefully recorded the outbursts of seismic vibrations and then sent the earthquake data, a gift of science, to Earth the next day. But what is this seismic event??
SPORTS NEWS FROM ATHLETIC
Play for a country you barely know: For athletes with dual citizenship, representing a country you didn’t grow up in can raise questions around cultural identity. The current reality is that the number of players is stable represent a country they have never even visited.
Manchester City women to stop wearing white shorts: And they are not alone. Many teams I won’t wear white shorts anymore as part of a commitment to help players “feel comfortable and perform at their best” during their menstrual cycle.
Bad times for La Liga in the Champions League: After an evening turned into a farce, La Liga is left a club that reached the round of 16 of the Champions League final. At this point, the Spanish clubs were knocked out by European rivals. It was a serious turn in the history of a proud tournament.
From The Times: Major League Baseball is considering adopting an automated strike zone system as early as 2024, potentially ending the era of refereeing at the World Series. In turn behind the disc: Are you more accurate than the umpire of a tournament?
SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICA
High stakes talks on Ethiopia
After nearly two years of civil war, representatives from the Ethiopian government and rebels in the country’s Tigray region began holding formal peace talks this week. If negotiations fail, it may aggravate a conflict of which thousands were killed and millions displaced.
So far, little has stood out from the negotiations being held in South Africa and brokered by former African leaders on behalf of the African Union. Tigray exiles say they have little hope that talks will end the fighting, which has already begun. after a controversial election.
Murithi Mutiga, Africa program director at the International Crisis Group, said: “Ethiopia faces many challenges including major climate tensions, a dire economic situation, partly due to war and several other uprisings.”
“It can’t stand a years-long war on its border,” he added. “The collapse in negotiations will mean more carnage in what is already one of the bloodiest wars in the world.” – Lynsey Chutel, a reporter in Johannesburg
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