Simply go out into the world and you’ll immediately find red symbolism everywhere. From red stoplights and stop signs, to red restaurant logos, and even red-light districts, our associations with the color are obvious. It’s sexy, it stops you in your tracks, and phrases like “seeing red” also indicate we link this color with anger and frustration.
As Nina Ashby, psychic and author of Simply Color Therapy, tells mindbodygreen, red is considered the densest and slowest moving vibrational wave, and that includes everything from very dark red shades of red to light pinks. And being the color of the root chakra, she says, it also represents the material world.
“It represents blood; It represents life force passion; its slow-moving molecules create friction, which creates heat, so it represents heat and fire as well,” Ashby explains, noting that this is a super-stimulating color. After all, when we’re “fired up,” so to speak, we may become flushed with red, and that’s no coincidence.
Color therapist Walaa AlMuhaiteebpreviously told mindbodygreen that red is related to lust, passion, energy, and material things. And as Ashby explains, Mars, the masculine planet of action and war, is literally nicknamed “the red planet” and rules the fieriest sign of them all: Aries.
Red is even considered a “power color,” frequently worn by politicians, royalty, and anyone of high status—and research proves1 that we recognize it as such.
And this color’s rich symbolism isn’t anything new, with a long-standing reputation throughout history. As world history and Western symbology expert Michel Pastoureau writes in Red: The History of a Color, the symbolism of red can be found in the Bible (think the fires of hell and the Devil), while the ancient Greeks and Romans associated it with excellence, and the Red Cross uses red in its signature cross logo.
Not only that, but red may alter perceptions of time and even impact our metabolism. One study published in the journal Scientific Reports2 found that when men saw a red screen, their perception of time slowed down compared to when looking at a blue screen. Research published in the journal Management Decision also notes that red stimulates appetite because of its effect on the metabolism, making it a popular color for restaurant design.
Just weeks before crypto lender Genesis filed for bankruptcy, three former employees of the company claimed they had secured millions of dollars for a new crypto hedge fund, according to correspondence viewed by CNBC.
Matt Ballensweig, who left Genesis in September after more than five years at the firm, sent a message to a prospective investor in mid-December, regarding a fund he was starting called Hunting Hill Digital. Ballensweig said he had already secured $2.5 million from Bessemer Venture Partners at a $30 million post-money valuation, and wrote in the message that he and his partners were in the process of raising another $5 million.
Bessemer told CNBC in an email that they are not an investor in Hunting Hill Digital.
The fund’s “flagship product” would go live in the first quarter of 2023, the message said.
Other partners in the fund would include Martin Garcia, who spent more than six years at Genesis, and Reed Werbitt, Genesis’ former head of trading, the message said. Werbitt, Garcia, and Ballensweig all left Genesis around the same time in 2022.
Genesis, which is owned by Barry Silbert’s Digital Currency Group, filed for bankruptcy protection on Thursday, the latest casualty in the industry contagion caused by the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November. In its bankruptcy filing, Genesis listed over 100,000 creditors, with aggregate liabilities ranging from $1.2 billion to $11 billion dollars.
Ballensweig was named in legal filings surrounding the implosion of Genesis’ lending book. Gemini, a crypto exchange and major Genesis client, accused Ballensweig of falsely reassuring Gemini in July that Genesis was financially stable. Gemini claimed that Ballensweig told its representatives that Genesis had “capital to operate… for the long term,” according to court filings.
Ballensweig did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations made against him by Gemini or on his recent capital raise.
Ballensweig spent his final nine months at Genesis as managing director and co-head of trading and lending.
The ex-Genesis employees teamed up with Adam Guren from hedge fund Hunting Hill, Ballensweig said. Hunting Hill is a $718 million hedge fund, which launched in 2010 and moved into digital asset investing in 2020 with a crypto opportunities fund.
Hunting Hill did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ballensweig pitched the flagship product as an “alpha multistrat (delta neutral),” or a fund specializing in multi-strategy, low-risk, high-return investments. He added that the trio would also launch two other beta products including a “Top 25 Index” and a “DeFi beta.”
“Think you’d be a valuable early partner,” Ballensweig said in his pitch.
Ballensweig isn’t the only Genesis alum seeking to launch a fund. Roshun Patel, a former vice president at Genesis who left the company in March after almost four years, was raising cash for a new fund in mid-2022. CNBC reached out to Garcia, Werbitt and Patel for comment on their raises but did not immediately hear back.
PARIS — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz raised optimism on Sunday that the EU and the U.S. can reach a trade truce in the coming months to prevent discrimination against European companies due to American subsidies.
Speaking at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron following a joint Franco-German Cabinet meeting in Paris, Scholz said he was “confident” that the EU and the U.S. could reach an agreement “within the first quarter of this year” to address measures under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act that Europe fears would siphon investments in key technologies away the Continent.
“My impression is that there is a great understanding in the U.S. [of the concerns raised in the EU],” the chancellor said.
Macron told reporters that he and Scholz supported attempts by the European Commission to negotiate exemptions from the U.S. law to avoid discrimination against EU companies.
The fresh optimism came as both leaders adopted a joint statement in which they called for loosening EU state aid rules to boost home-grown green industries — in a response to the U.S. law. The text said the EU needed “ambitious” measures to increase the bloc’s economic competitiveness, such as “simplified and streamlined procedures for state aid” that would allow pumping more money into strategic industries.
The joint statement also stressed the need to create “sufficient funding.” But in a win for Berlin, which has been reluctant to talk about new EU debt, the text says that the bloc should first make “full use of the available funding and financial instruments.” The statement also includes an unspecific reference about the need to create “solidarity measures.”
EU leaders will meet early next month to discuss Europe’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Franco-German proposal to soften state aid rules.
The relationship between Scholz and Macron hit a low in recent months when the French president canceled a planned joint Cabinet meeting in October over disagreements on energy, finance and defense. But the two leaders have since found common ground over responding to the green subsidies in Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act. Macron said that Paris and Berlin had worked in recent weeks to “synchronize” their visions for Europe.
“We need the greatest convergence possible to help Europe to move forward,” he said.
But there was little convergence on how to respond to Ukraine’s repeated requests for Germany and France to deliver battle tanks amid fears there could be a renewed Russian offensive in the spring.
Asked whether France would send Leclerc tanks to Ukraine, Macron said the request was being considered and there was work to be done on this issue in the “days and weeks to come.”
Scholz evaded a question on whether Germany would send Leopard 2 tanks, stressing that Berlin had never ceased supporting Ukraine with weapons deliveries and took its decisions in cooperation with its allies.
“We have to fear that this war will go on for a very long time,” the chancellor said.
Reconciliation, for past and present
The German chancellor and his Cabinet were in Paris on Sunday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Elysée treaty, which marked a reconciliation between France and Germany after World War II. The celebrations, first at the Sorbonne University and later at the Elysée Palace, were also a moment for the two leaders to put their recent disagreements aside.
Paris and Berlin have been at odds in recent months not only over defense, energy and finance policy, but also Scholz’s controversial €200 billion package for energy price relief, which was announced last fall without previously involving the French government. These tensions culminated in Macron snubbing Scholz by canceling, in an unprecedented manner, a planned press conference with the German leader in October.
At the Sorbonne, Scholz admitted relations between the two countries were often turbulent.
“The Franco-German engine isn’t always an engine that purrs softly; it’s also a well-oiled machine that can be noisy when it is looking for compromises,” he said.
Macron said France and Germany needed to show “fresh ambition” at a time when “history is becoming unhinged again,” in a reference to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Because we have cleared a path towards reconciliation, France and Germany must become pioneers for the relaunch of Europe” in areas such as energy, innovation, technology, artificial intelligence and diplomacy, he said.
On defense, Paris and Berlin announced that Franco-German battalions would be deployed to Romania and Lithuania to reinforce NATO’s eastern front.
The leaders also welcomed “with satisfaction” recent progress on their joint fighter jet project, FCAS, and said they wanted to progress on their Franco-German tank project, according to the joint statement.
The joint declaration also said that both countries are open to the long-term project of EU treaty changes, and that in the shorter term they want to overcome “deadlocks” in the Council of the EU by switching to qualified majority voting on foreign policy and taxation.
Newswise — A coyote’s lone cry punctuated the darkness as the two biologists hiked the wooded trail, parkas tightly zipped against the chill October night. They had been trekking this route every hour since dusk, winding their way to the mist nets they had set up earlier in the day. Once at a net, they slowly walked along its 36-foot length. When they discovered a northern saw-whet owl lying passively in one of the net pockets, they worked quickly, expertly untangling, banding, sampling, and measuring the tiny raptor in just minutes.
Since 2009, BRI wildlife biologist Kate Williams and others have studied the migration and movement patterns of birds and bats over the Gulf of Maine and elsewhere on the Atlantic coast. BRI biologists documented that migratory owls fly over open water, taking advantage of islands as stopover sites, and that migratory falcons will fly hundreds of miles out over the Atlantic on their way south to the Caribbean and South America. This new information initiated important discussions about how migrating birds and bats might be affected by offshore structures, such as wind turbines.
Careful siting of renewable energy development seems to play a key role in minimizing impacts to wildlife, but this requires detailed knowledge of where animals breed, winter, and migrate. To address this need, BRI established a wildlife and renewable energy program in 2009, which has evolved over the past 12 years into BRI’s Center for Research on Offshore Wind and the Environment (CROWE). Offshore wind energy is an essential component of plans to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and mitigate the effects of climate change on wildlife and ecosystems. According to the 2022 International Panel on Climate Change report, it is now “unequivocal” that human influence has warmed the atmosphere. Fossil fuel use has significantly contributed to the acceleration of climate change impacts, and now the “scale of recent changes across the climate system as a whole – and the present state of many aspects of the climate system – are unprecedented over many centuries to many thousands of years.” A path forward involves increased renewable energy technology to limit cumulative CO2 emissions.
However, as with other energy sources, offshore wind can also present risks to wildlife and their environment. BRI biologists continue to work to understand wildlife distributions and movements and to identify ways to minimize risks from offshore wind energy development.
CROWE director Kate Williams recognizes the need for rapid, renewable energy development as well as thorough wildlife risk assessments and monitoring. “We are trying to figure out how to mitigate sort of, local scale impacts to wildlife from these developments…but trying to figure out how to minimize that as much as possible for this sort of greater good of trying to figure out how to mitigate climate change to the point that we’re not going to see sort of large-scale extinctions, which is what they’re predicting right now.”
Specific research conducted by BRI staff intended to determine potential risks to wildlife from offshore wind development include bird field studies and assessments for seabirds, waterfowl, shorebirds, songbirds, and raptors, acoustic studies, transmitter deployment and tracking, observational surveys (vessel- and plane-based), digital aerial surveys, stakeholder engagement and coordination, and development of siting strategies and monitoring and mitigation plans.
As with all BRI research centers and programs, the offshore wind team utilizes innovative science and cutting-edge technology to provide accurate information. High-definition digital aerial surveys involve survey planes with an array of cameras that point down to the ocean’s surface which can identify species seen in the video. Aerial surveys allow researchers to determine which species are most at risk in areas designated for proposed wind arrays, and that information can be passed on to decision makers and developers. BRI also houses a Quantitative Wildlife Ecology Research Laboratory (QWERL) that provides large scale population and distribution models that help understand population dynamics in or near offshore wind arrays. Williams notes, “it’s a rare skillset to have that degree of mathematical expertise and also have the ecological expertise to understand how to apply it.” Cutting-edge science, combined with a wide range of ecological expertise, will continue to guide BRI’s wind energy research to provide accurate information to stakeholders and policy makers.
Newswise — In order to meet climate protection goals, renewable energies are booming – often wind power. More than 30,000 turbines have already been installed on the German mainland so far, and the industry is currently scrambling to locate increasingly rare suitable sites. Thus, forests are coming into focus as potential sites. A scientific team from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW) now demonstrated in a new paper published in the scientific journal “Current Biology” that wind turbines in forests impair endangered bat species: Common noctules (Nyctalus noctula), a species with a high risk of colliding with rotor blades, are attracted to forest wind turbines if these are located near their roosts. Far from roosts, common noctules avoid the turbines, essentially resulting in a loss of foraging space and thus habitat for this species.
The research results show that common noctules suffer in two ways from wind turbines in forests: If the wind turbines are built near roosts, noctules face an increasing risk of colliding with the turbines, and they lose foraging habitat because they avoid wind turbines far from roosts. In their paper the team concludes that wind power development in forests must be avoided or, if there is no alternative, should be undertaken with great care and caution. The wind turbine should be placed at least at a distance of 500 meters away from bat roosting sites, and loss of foraging habitat should be compensated for by taking forests out of use for wind power (or other anthropogenic activities) elsewhere.
Wind energy production is an important pillar for the energy transition to renewable energies in Germany and makes a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Approximately eight percent of wind turbines in Germany have already been built in forests. This number is expected to significantly increase in the coming years as suitable sites in open landscapes become increasingly scarce. “A large number of bat species occur in forests because there are many tree roosts and suitable foraging habitats with a high abundance of insects, their prey”, says Christian Voigt, head of the Department of Evolutionary Ecology at the Leibniz-IZW. “These include species such as the common noctule, which is the most common victim among the bat species of wind turbines in Germany. According to the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN), common noctule populations are declining throughout Germany. It is therefore a matter of urgency to take a closer look at the interaction of bats with wind turbines in forests.”
Voigt and his colleagues investigated the space-use behaviour of common noctules using miniaturised GPS loggers. These loggers recorded the flight paths of 60 bats with a high temporal and spatial resolution over 1-2 nights before the loggers automatically came off each animal. “We found that the common noctules were particularly likely to approach wind turbines if the latter were located close to bat roosts”, explains Voigt. As highly social mammals, the bats use exposed structures as meeting spots. This could be the reason why they often approach wind turbines, which rise well above the canopy, if turbines are located near roosts. This poses a high risk to the animals of colliding with the rotor blades. “Wind turbines would therefore have to be erected at a sufficient distance from existing tree roosts”, concludes Christine Reusch, first author of the paper. “As roosts can also be newly created, there is a risk that supposedly safe wind turbines, which were initially erected at a sufficiently large distance from the then existing bat roosts during the approval phase, later become death traps”, Reusch adds.
The authors also found that further away from tree roosts, common noctules avoided wind turbines. They discovered this after they had carried out a data analysis in which all bat GPS locations in the vicinity of roosts were excluded from the analysis. This showed that bats avoid wind turbines if placed well beyond roosts. “This sounds like good news but it has a problematic side to it”, says Voigt. “Owing to their avoidance behaviour, common noctule bats essentially lose important hunting habitats.” The scientists therefore recommend, firstly, that wind turbines should not be sited in forests, and secondly, that special care should be taken if there are no alternatives. A minimum distance of 500 meters of wind turbines to known bat roosts should be taken into account during the approval procedures and the loss of foraging habitat in the vicinity of wind turbines should be compensated for elsewhere. The expansion of wind energy production into forests is therefore a major challenge to conservation in view of the complex interaction of bats with wind turbines in forests, according to Voigt and Reusch.
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Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (IZW)
Newswise — Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS, President Hyun-Min Park) has succeeded in developing a high-performance energy analyzer, which is a key technology for determining the performance of electron microscopes. The service will be made available to local equipment companies, to foster the advanced microscope industry.
The performance of electron microscopes depends on the characteristics of the electron sources that produce the electron beams. This is because electron beams are focused on a lens to observe specimens. To allow precise focusing the energy distribution of the electron particles must be uniform, even when observing extremely small specimens. As such, it is important to accurately measure the energy width, an indicator of the uniformity of energy distribution, in order to develop high-performance electron microscopes.
Many local companies have successfully developed electron microscopes, but have had to rely on numbers available in the literature instead of actual measurements, because there has been no energy analyzer capable of measuring energy width. The conventional approach does not allow comprehensive performance validation, as slight differences in performance across individual microscopes are overlooked. For companies to enter the high-performance electron microscope market, they must be able to obtain accurate measurements of energy width.
The KRISS research team developed design technology from simulations performed in 2019, and successfully developed a pre-lens retarding field energy analyzer. The production cost was relatively cheap at around a few million won, and the device can measure an energy distribution broadening of 13.8 meV. This energy analyzer can be utilized to perform evaluations of advanced research equipment, including scanning electron microscopes. It is only 60 mm in size, making it useful as an independent analyzer, or it can be attached inside existing equipment, for microscopes with an integrated electron beam performance evaluation function.
Energy analyzers can be mainly divided into two types. The hemispherical electron energy analyzer offers outstanding energy resolution, but is expensive and much larger in size (700 mm). The grid-type retarding field energy analyzer is compact and affordable, but is inadequate for performance evaluation as its energy resolution exceeds 300 meV.
In addition to using the existing measurement test of angular current density, KRISS established an energy width measurement platform, and launched a testing service for local companies in August. By the end of this year KRISS plans to establish an energy resolution performance evaluation platform to assess the influence of magnetic field, noise and vibration.
In-Yong Park, team leader of the KRISS Scientific Instruments Performance Evaluation Team, said, “Previously, Korea lacked technological self-reliance for high-performance electron microscopes despite their importance in materials, parts, and biotechnology. The new platform for comprehensive performance evaluation, ranging from individual microscope parts to the entire system, will pave the way for local companies to enter the high-performance microscope market.”
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As the representative institute in the national measurement standards, the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has been setting the highest measurement standards and ensuring their international equivalence since its inception in 1975. Thereby, we help build solid foundations for the national development in science and technology and for industrial advancements.
The results of the study, funded by KRISS and the Basic Science Research Program under the National Research Foundation of Korea, were published in Microscopy and Microanalysis (IF: 4.099) in September.
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National Research Council of Science and Technology
OK, so there’s no planets in retrograde for the next few months. But why does that actually matter for us? For one thing, it means that the themes and areas of life each of the planets govern will be moving ahead full steam, as opposed to thwarting our progress.
And according to the AstroTwins, we can also thank Uranus moving direct through Taurus for a bit of a material boost. “Bottlenecked plans with work and money could pick up speed again—stay on your toes!” the twins note.
Not only that, but risk-taker Jupiter (the planet of expansion, luck, and abundance) is in Aries until May 16. As the twins explain, this means you have all the planetary permission you need to step on the gas.
So, if your New Year’s resolutions didn’t get off on the right foot, have no fear. In fact, the twins say that the first few weeks of January were better suited for evaluating your options anyway. Once all the planets are direct, according to them, “You can confidently choose your 2023 direction and go.”
New Hampshire (NH) Governor Chris Sununu’s “Commission On Cryptocurrencies And Digital Assets” has returned results that suggest the NH Department of Energy create a public review of how bitcoin mining operations might be integrated into a statewide energy plan.
The commission cites “positive impacts for the electricity system, including contributing to a more stable electricity grid, more sustainable generation projects, and lower costs for consumers generally,” as reasoning for this recommendation.
Governor Sununu created the Commission via executive order back in February 2022, which in part read that “the State of New Hampshire should continue to be an active proponent of financial services innovation and should remain an excellent jurisdiction to attract the highest quality banking and financial businesses and the well-paying jobs they offered to our citizens.”
This report’s findings come a couple of months after the release of a report titled “Texas Work Group On Blockchain Matters.” Directed at members of the Texas legislature, it recommended making bitcoin an authorized investment for the state, while giving tax incentives to local BTC miners. Both reports conclude that further research into Bitcoin is necessary, and indicate that American states are increasingly considering the benefits of embracing bitcoin.
Also indicated in the New Hampshire report was the necessity for regulation to protect consumers. “A well regulated cryptocurrency market provides consumer protection, and trust in the market which is a boon to investors, the general public, and businesses alike,” reads appendix B, written by New Hampshire’s Bureau of Securities Regulation. “What has become increasingly clear over the past several years is that cryptocurrency has a role in securities regulation.”
States like New Hampshire and Texas could end up leading the way for Bitcoin adoption in the U.S. if they decide to follow such recommendations. It is important for Bitcoiners who have ties to state legislature or are in the Bitcoin ecosystem to advocate for continued inquiry into how states can integrate the technology, as states are often much more nimble in their ability to adopt new technologies when compared to the federal government.
DAVOS, Switzerland – Jan. 19, 2023: Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, during a CNBC panel session on day three of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images
U.K. opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for opting not to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
On a CNBC-moderated panel in Davos, Starmer said he had been meeting with business leaders and policymakers to promote the idea of a Clean Power Alliance should Labour win the next general election in 2024.
The international body, which Starmer characterized as an “inverse OPEC,” would seek to address the joint economic challenges of climate change, renewable energy job creation and household energy costs.
“I think our prime minister should have showed up — I absolutely do. One of the things that has been impressed on me since I’ve been here is the absence of the United Kingdom,” Starmer told the panel.
“That’s why I think it’s really important that I’m here and that our Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves is here, as a statement of intent that should there be a change of government, and I hope there will be, the United Kingdom will play its part on the global stage in a way I think it probably hasn’t in recent years.”
Sunak was not the only world leader to skip the summit, with U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and new Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also absent.
British Business and Energy Minister Grant Shapps is in the Swiss Alps in Sunak’s absence, and told CNBC on Thursday that it was appropriate that he attend, as his role in government is to secure business investment and jobs for the U.K.
“[Sunak] may well come another year, but right now in the midst of the energy crisis caused by Ukraine being invaded by Putin, with all of the trauma that we’ve gone through with Covid and much else, he is at home focusing — as a brand new prime minister, by the way, two or three months into the job — on the domestic priorities,” Shapps said.
“I’m here because I’m actually, technically, if you like, the right person to have in Davos.”
Sunak spent Thursday on a visit to Morecambe in the northwest of England as part of a series of trips to promote his government’s “leveling up” funding.
‘Inverse OPEC’
Labour holds a massive polling lead over Sunak’s ruling Conservative Party ahead of the next general election slated for 2024. The latest Ipsos voting intention poll published this week gave Labour a 26 point lead with a 49% share of the vote to the Conservatives’ 23%.
“The prize here is huge in terms of energy security and that shouldn’t be something which is national. It’s in all of our interests to have energy security, it’s in all of our interests to make sure that Putin can’t weaponize energy across the world, whether it’s now or any time in the future,” Starmer said.
“There’s an element of course of each country trying to rise to this challenge themselves but there is also this element of mutual cooperation in this in relation to the mutual threats that we are facing, and that’s why I’m very keen to develop this idea of Clean Power Alliance, which is an inverse OPEC in the sense that the purpose is to drive down those prices across the globe.”
OPEC, or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is a permanent intergovernmental alliance of 13 major oil producing nations that negotiate adjustments in their respective production in order to retain stability in global oil prices.
Smoky quartz is a specific variety of the crystalline mineral, quartz. As Ashley Leavy, founder and educational director of the Love and Light School of Crystal Therapy explains to mindbodygreen, as quartz hardens and crystallizes, small particles of different elements can get trapped inside. So in the case of smoky quartz, those elements are trace amounts of lithium and aluminum, which create this stone’s telltale “smoky” appearance.
According to Leavy, smoky quartz is commonly found in places like Brazil, parts of Africa, Scotland, and the state of Colorado. It’s actually the national gem of Scotland, with “Cairngorm” quartz, from the Cairngorm mountains of Scotland, being particularly sought after.
“Some ancient Celtic people used it for personal adornment and jewelry, as well as in ceremonial pieces like weapons,” she says. And as spiritual health expert and meditation teacher, Kara Ladd, previously wrote for mbg, “It was the Druid’s first choice in sacred ceremonies and rituals, [and was] believed to guide souls to the afterlife and keep evil spirits away.”
In general, Leavy says that smoky quartz is terribly underrated, and really shouldn’t be. “A lot of people aren’t drawn to it because it’s not seemingly pretty on the surface—and I think smoky quartz just doesn’t get the attention it deserves because it’s pretty amazing,” she notes.
TOKYO, Japan, Jan 18 (IPS) – The Ukraine crisis that erupted in February last year continues with no prospect for cessation. The intensified hostilities have inflicted great suffering in population centers and destroyed infrastructure facilities, compelling large numbers of civilians, including many children and women, to live in a state of constant peril.
The history of the twentieth century, which witnessed the horrors caused by two global conflicts, should have brought home the lesson that nothing is more cruel or miserable than war.
During World War II, when I was in my teens, I experienced the firebombing of Tokyo. To this day, I remember with great vividness getting separated from family members as we fled desperately through a sea of flames, and not learning that they were safe until the following day.
How many people have lost their lives or livelihoods in the ongoing crisis, how many have found their own and their family’s ways of life suddenly and irrevocably altered?
Many other countries have also been seriously impacted in the form of constrained food supplies, spiking energy prices and disrupted financial markets.
It is crucial that we find a breakthrough in order to prevent any further worsening of the conditions facing people worldwide, to say nothing of the Ukrainian people who are compelled to live with inadequate and uncertain supplies of electricity amidst a deepening winter and intensifying military conflict.
I therefore call for the urgent holding of a meeting, under UN auspices, among the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine and other key countries in order to reach agreement on a cessation of hostilities. I also urge that earnest discussions be undertaken toward a summit that would bring together the heads of all concerned states in order to find a path to the restoration of peace.
Together with calling for the earliest possible resolution to the Ukraine crisis, I wish to stress the crucial importance of implementing measures to prevent the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, both in the current crisis and all future conflicts.
Nuclear rhetoric has ratcheted up, and the risk that these weapons might actually be used stands today at its highest level since the end of the Cold War. Even if no party seeks nuclear war, the reality is that, with nuclear arsenals in a continuing state of high alert, there is a considerably heightened risk of unintentional nuclear weapon use as a result of data error, unforeseen accident or confusion provoked by a cyberattack.
Along with reducing tensions with the goal of resolving the Ukraine crisis, I feel it is of paramount importance that the nuclear-weapon states initiate action to reduce nuclear risks as a means of ensuring that situations do not arise—either now or in the future—in which the possibility of nuclear weapons use looms. It was with this in mind that in July last year I issued a statement to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in which I urged the five nuclear-weapon states to make prompt and unambiguous pledges that they would never be the first to launch a nuclear strike—the principle of “No First Use.”
Regrettably, the August NPT Review Conference was unable to reach consensus on a final document. But this in no way means that the nuclear disarmament obligations set out in Article VI of the treaty no longer pertain. As the various drafts of the final document indicate, there was widespread support for nuclear risk reduction measures such as the adoption of No First Use policies and extending negative security assurances, by which nuclear-weapon states pledge never to use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess them.
The pledge of No First Use is a measure that nuclear-weapon states can take even while maintaining for the present their current nuclear arsenals; nor does it mean that the threat of the some 13,000 nuclear warheads existing in the world today would quickly dissipate. However, what I would like to stress is that should this policy take root among nuclear-armed states, it will create an opening for removing the climate of mutual fear. This, in turn, can enable the world to change course—away from nuclear buildup premised on deterrence and toward nuclear disarmament to avert catastrophe.
Looking back, the global state of affairs during the Cold War era was characterized by a series of seemingly insoluble crises that rattled the world, spreading shockwaves of insecurity and dread. And yet humankind managed to find exit strategies and pull through.
One example of this is the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) held between the United States and the Soviet Union. Intention to hold these was announced on the day of the 1968 signing ceremony for the NPT, which had been negotiated in response to the bitter lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The SALT negotiations were the first steps taken by the US and the USSR to put the brakes on the nuclear arms race based on their nuclear disarmament obligations under Article VI of the NPT.
For those involved in these talks, to impose constraints on the nuclear policies that had been developed as the exclusive prerogative of the state could not have been easy. Nonetheless, this was a decision indispensable to the survival not only of the citizens of their respective nations, but of all humankind.
Having experienced first-hand the terror of teetering on the brink of nuclear war, the people of that time brought forth historic powers of imagination and creativity. Now is the time for all countries and peoples to come together to once again unleash those creative powers and bring into being a new chapter in human history.
Bloodstone, also known as “heliotrope,” is a cryptocrystalline mixture of quartz that occurs as jasper or chalcedony. Bloodstone is typically a dark green color with telltale red inclusions of hematite, which look like spots of blood, making this stone very aptly named.
As Ashley Leavy, founder and educational director of the Love and Light School of Crystal Therapy tells mindbodygreen, bloodstone has an incredibly rich history, believed to be a stone of healing, protection, divination, and more, by ancient cultures.
According to her, an early-Roman philosopher named Pliny the Elder (one of the oldest known stone writers) even claimed bloodstone was a stone of invisibility. “Some other ancient sources believed it could control weather and eclipses, and it was also called ‘The Stone of Babylon,’ because the ancient Babylonians believed it was so powerful and magical that they used it to make really important artifacts, like seals and amulets,” Leavy notes.
Today, bloodstone can be found all around the world, in countries like the U.S., Brazil, India, Australia, Germany, Italy, and South Africa.
The Gabura union, a small island adjacent to the Sundarbans forest, is expected to be submerged in seawater by 2050. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan
by Mohammad Rakibul Hasan – and AI Artificial Intelligence (dhaka, bangladesh)
Inter Press Service
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Jan 18 (IPS) – Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. However, negotiating a solution has been challenging due to several factors. One of the main reasons that recent COP Climate summits and other international climate talks have not been able to resolve climate change is that there is a lack of consensus among countries on how to address the issue. Developed countries, which have historically been the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, are often unwilling to take on significant emissions reductions or to provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to the effects of climate change.
The Gabura union, a small island adjacent to the Sundarbans forest, is expected to be submerged in seawater by 2050. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan
Another significant barrier to progress on climate change is the need for more political will among leaders of countries. In some cases, leaders may not see climate change as a priority or may be reluctant to take on the economic and political costs of reducing emissions or investing in clean energy due to political reasons. Some countries may be influenced by powerful fossil fuel lobbies that push against climate action. Developed countries must be willing to take on more significant emissions reductions and provide financial assistance to developing countries to help them adapt to the effects of climate change. Developing countries, in turn, need to be willing to take on emissions reduction measures and invest in clean energy and other climate mitigation measures.This can happen through more effective multilateral negotiations such as United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where all countries agree to set emissions reduction targets and support developing countries.
Bangladesh is located in the low-lying delta region of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers, making the country particularly susceptible to flooding and rising sea levels. Bangladesh is also prone to cyclones and other extreme weather events, which are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. The country has a long coastline, much of which is low-lying and vulnerable to flooding. As sea levels continue to rise, the risk of coastal flooding is increasing, devastatingly impacting the lives and livelihoods of the people in these areas. These events are causing widespread damage to homes and infrastructure and affecting the country’s agricultural sector, a significant source of income for many people in Bangladesh. Many people in the coastal areas have lost their homes and livelihoods due to sea level rise and coastal flooding. They face food and water insecurity due to increased soil and water salinity.
Globally, rich countries can assist Bangladesh cope with climate change in several ways. One crucial way is by providing financial assistance to help the country adapt to the impacts of climate change. This may include funding for building sea walls and other flood protection infrastructure and programs to help people in coastal areas relocate to higher ground. Another way rich countries can help is by providing technical assistance to Bangladesh to develop and implement clean energy and other climate mitigation measures. This could include funding and expertise to help the country develop renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, as well as to improve energy efficiency and to reduce emissions from the industrial and transportation sectors.
The Sundarbans forests, located in the coastal belt of Bangladesh, is one of the most vulnerable areas in the country to the impacts of climate change. The forests span over 10,000 square kilometres and is home to various plant and animal species, including the Royal Bengal tiger. Sea level rise is one of the most significant threats to the Sundarbans forest making it particularly susceptible to flooding and rising sea levels. According to a study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sea levels in the Bay of Bengal are projected to increase by up to 1 meter by the end of the century. This would devastate the Sundarban forests, as seawater would submerge large areas.
The impacts of climate change on the Sundarban forests are also likely to have knock-on effects on the people living in the surrounding areas. The forests are a significant source of livelihood for many people in the region, who rely on it for fishing, agriculture, and other activities. As the forests are damaged by sea level rise and extreme weather events, these people will also be affected by food and water insecurity and the loss of their homes and livelihoods. Many people who lost their homes and land to flooding, were forced to relocate to higher grounds.
The health impacts of climate change on people living around the Sundarban are also significant. As a result of sea level rise and increased flooding, many are at risk of waterborne diseases such as cholera and diarrhea. Extreme weather events are accelerating salinity across the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Women are experiencing uterus cancers, infertility, and skin diseases, and men, too, are experiencing fertility problems and other health issues. Due to the loss of livelihoods and displacement, many people face food insecurity and malnutrition. In addition to these immediate impacts, climate change exacerbates the region’s existing social and economic inequalities. People living in poverty and marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by climate change, as they have fewer resources to cope with the impacts and less access to services and support.
Climate change has led to a growing number of people migrating from these areas, searching for better opportunities and escaping the impacts of climate change. Most climate migrants from coastal belt areas of Bangladesh are moving to urban areas, such as the capital city of Dhaka and other major cities. These migrants often seek better job opportunities and access to services and support. However, many migrants face challenges in their new locations, such as a lack of affordable housing, discrimination, and limited access to services and support. The future is uncertain for those still living in coastal areas of Bangladesh and fighting the climate crisis. Many of the people living in these areas are among the country’s most vulnerable and marginalized communities, making them particularly susceptible to the impacts of climate change. Climate conversations worldwide by world leaders and major organizations have been occurring every year. But they must see the severity of the situation for the people suffering and take concrete actions beyond being in a room to converse about the effects of climate change.
Climate conversations by world leaders are occurring worldwide but how much is changing ? Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan Many indigenous communities across the Sundarbans forest have been experiencing extreme weather conditions. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan Fishing communities face extreme poverty due to the lack of fish available in the rivers. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan Women around coastline areas of Bangladesh face increased salinity, a major cause of uterus cancer. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan Due to climate change, extreme heat and salinity are declining birth rates across the coastal belt in Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan Climate change is accelerating the displacement of inhabitants across the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan Four families are sitting with what remains in their food storage. Due to high salinity, agricultural products cannot grow well anymore. Credit: Mohammad Rakibul Hasan
The IEA’s Birol said that prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, “Russia was the number one energy exporter to the world.”
Natalia Kolesnikova | Afp | Getty Images
International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol believes Russia will lose its energy war with the West, saying China and India’s crude oil purchases will likely fall short of offsetting the fall in shipments to Europe.
“Europe is having major economic problems, but for Russia, Europe was a very, very important client,” Birol told CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Last week, an independent analysis from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air showed that revenues from Russia’s fossil fuel exports collapsed in December, significantly hampering President Vladimir Putin’s ability to finance the war in Ukraine.
The Finnish think tank’s report found that the first month of the European Union’s ban on seaborne imports of Russian crude and the G-7′s price cap had cost Moscow an estimated 160 million euros ($173.4 million) per day.
It said that the Western measures were largely responsible for a 17% fall in Russia’s earnings from fossil fuel exports in the final month of 2022. A spokesperson for Russia’s Finance Ministry did not respond when asked to comment on the report’s findings.
Birol described Russia as “the number one energy exporter to the world” prior to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year.
Roughly 75% of Russian gas exports and 55% of its oil exports went to Europe, Birol said, before the EU sought to rapidly wean itself off Moscow’s fossil fuels.
“So, to find a client for gas and oil so easily to replace Europe will be extremely difficult,” he said. “I know that there are some countries in Asia, [such as] China and India, that are benefitting from this situation, and they are buying a lot of Russian oil, but I would be very careful to believe that those countries’ imports will, both in volume terms and revenue terms, combine to what Europe was doing.”
“Russia will face major difficulties both for oil and gas exports and, in my view, when we look at the next couple of quarters and years, Russia will lose the energy battle,” Birol said.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that without further action, humanity was on course for a global temperature increase of 2.8 degrees Ceslius.
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday condemned fossil fuel giants for ignoring their own climate science, accusing the oil and gas industry of seeking to expand production despite knowing “full well” that their business model is incompatible with human survival.
“Some in Big Oil peddled the big lie,” Guterres said during a special address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “And like the tobacco industry, those responsible must be held to account.”
His comments come shortly after research showed how Exxon Mobil, one of the world’s largest oil companies, accurately forecast global heating as long ago as the 1970s only to then spend decades publicly contradicting their own research.
Research papers have previously found that Exxon was aware of the dangers of global heating since the late 1970s, while other oil industry bodies knew of the risks associated with burning fossil fuels since at least the 1950s.
The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate emergency.
“Every week brings a new climate horror story,” Guterres said, warning that the commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels was “going up in smoke.” This temperature threshold is the aspirational target set in the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
It is recognized as crucial because beyond this level, so-called tipping points become more likely. These are thresholds at which small changes can lead to dramatic shifts in Earth’s entire life support system.
Guterres said that without further action, humanity was on course for a global temperature increase of 2.8 degrees Celsius.
“The consequences will be devastating. Several parts of our planet will be uninhabitable. And for many, this is a death sentence,” he said.
“But it is not a surprise,” Guterres said. “The science has been clear for decades. I am not talking only about U.N. scientists. I am talking even about fossil fuel scientists.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently called out what he described as the “massive public relations machine raking in billions to shield the fossil fuel industry from scrutiny.”
Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Referring to the research published in Science last week, Guterres said, “Just like the tobacco industry, they rode rough-shod over their own science.”
“Today, fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that this business model is inconsistent with human survival,” he continued.
“Now, this insanity belongs in science-fiction, yet we know the ecosystem meltdown is cold, hard scientific fact.”
The world’s leading climate scientists warned last year that the fight to keep global temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius had reached “now or never” territory. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reaffirmed calls for a substantial reduction in fossil fuel use to curb global heating.
BERLIN — News this month that the number of German soldiers declaring themselves conscientious objectors rose fivefold in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine created little more than a ripple in Germany.
For many Germans it’s perfectly natural for members of the Bundeswehr, the army, to renege on the pledge they made to defend their country; if Germans themselves don’t want to fight, why should their troops?
Indeed, in Germany, a soldier isn’t a soldier but a “citizen in uniform.” It’s an apposite euphemism for a populace that has lived comfortably under the U.S. security umbrella for more than seven decades and goes a long way toward explaining how Germany became NATO’s problem child since the war in Ukraine began, delaying and frustrating the Western effort to get Ukraine the weaponry it needs to defend itself against an unprovoked Russian onslaught.
The latest installment in this saga (it began just hours after the February invasion when Germany’s finance minister told Ukraine’s ambassador there was no point in sending aid because his country would only survive for a few hours anyway) concerns the question of delivering main battle tanks to Ukraine. Germany, one of the largest producers of such tanks alongside the U.S., has steadfastly refused to do so for months, arguing that providing Ukraine with Western tanks could trigger a broader war.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also tried to hide behind the U.S., noting that Washington has also not sent any tanks. (Scholz has conveniently ignored the detail that the U.S. has provided Ukraine with $25 billion in military aid so far, more than 10 times what Germany has.)
Germany’s allies, including Washington, often ascribe German recalcitrance to a knee-jerk pacifism born of the lessons learned from its “dark past.”
In other words, the German strategy — do nothing, blame the Nazis — is working.
Of course, Germany’s conscience doesn’t really drive its foreign policy, its corporations do. While it hangs back from supporting Ukraine in a fight to defend its democracy from invasion by a tyrant, it has no qualms about selling to authoritarian regimes, like those in the Middle East, where it does brisk business selling weapons to countries such as Egypt and Qatar.
Despite everything that’s happened over the past year, Berlin is still holding out hope that Ukraine can somehow patch things up with Russia so that Germany can resume business as usual and switch the gas back on. Even if Germany ends up sending tanks to Ukraine — as many now anticipate — it will deliver as few as it can get away with and only after exhausting every possible option to delay.
Much attention in recent years has focused on Nord Stream 2, the ill-fated Russo-German natural gas project. Yet tensions between the U.S. and Germany over the latter’s entanglement with Russian energy interests date back to the late 1950s, when it first began supplying the Soviet Union with large-diameter piping.
Throughout the Cold War, Germany’s involvement with NATO was driven by a strategy to take advantage of the protection the alliance afforded, delivering no more than the absolute minimum, while also expanding commercial relations with the Soviets.
In 1955, the weekly Die Zeit described what it called the “fireside fantasy of West German industry” to normalize trade relations with the Soviet Union. Within years, that dream became a reality, driven in large measure by Chancellor Willy Brandt’s détente policies, known as Ostpolitik.
Joe Biden, eager to reverse the diplomatic damage inflicted during the Trump years, reversed course and has gone out of his way to show his appreciation for all things German | Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
That’s one reason the Germans so feared U.S. President Ronald Reagan and his hard line against the Soviets. Far from welcoming his “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” demand, both the German public and industry were terrified by it, worried that Reagan would upset the apple cart and destroy their business in the east.
By the time the Berlin Wall fell a couple of years later, West German exports to the Soviet Union had reached nearly 12 billion deutsche mark, a record.
That’s why Germany’s handling of Ukraine isn’t a departure from the norm; it is the norm.
Germany’s dithering over aid to Ukraine is a logical extension of a strategy that has served its economy well from the Cold War to the decision to block Ukraine’s NATO accession in 2008 to Nord Stream.
Just last week, as the Russians were raining terror on Dnipro, the minister president of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, called for the repair of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which was blown up by unknown saboteurs last year, so that Germany “keeps the option” to purchase Russian gas after war ends.
One can’t blame him for trying. If one accepts that German policy is driven by economic logic rather than moral imperative, the fickleness of its political leaders makes complete sense — all the more so considering how well it has worked.
The money Germany has saved on defense has enabled it to finance one of the world’s most generous welfare states. When Germany was under pressure from allies a few years ago to finally meet NATO’s 2 percent of GDP spending target, then-Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel called the goal “absurd.” And from a German perspective, he was right; why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
Of course, the Germans have had a lot of help milking, especially from the U.S.
American presidents have been chastising Germany over its lackluster contribution to the Western alliance going as far back as Dwight D. Eisenhower, only to do nothing about it.
The exception that proves the rule is Donald Trump, whose plan to withdraw most U.S. troops from Germany was thwarted by his election loss.
Joe Biden, eager to reverse the diplomatic damage inflicted during the Trump years, reversed course and has gone out of his way to show his appreciation for all things German.
Biden’s decision to court the Germans instead of castigating them for failing to meet their commitments taught Berlin that it merely needs to wait out crises in the transatlantic relationship and the problems will fix themselves. Under pressure from Trump to buy American liquefied natural gas, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in 2018 to support the construction of the necessary infrastructure. After Trump, those plans were put on ice, only to revive them amid the current energy crisis.
By virtue of its size and geographical position at the center of Europe, Germany will always be important for the U.S., if not as a true ally, at least as an erstwhile partner and staging ground for the American military.
Who cares that the Bundeswehr has become a punchline or that Germany remains years away from meeting its NATO spending targets?
In Washington’s view, Germany might be a bad ally, but at least it’s America’s bad ally.
And no one understands the benefits of that status better than the Germans themselves.
Unilever CEO Alan Jope photographed at the World Economic Forum in May 2022.
Hollie Adams | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The CEO of consumer goods giant Unilever said Tuesday that prices would likely continue to rise in the near term, adding that his firm had a playbook for high inflation thanks to its business dealings in markets like Argentina and Turkey.
Speaking to CNBC’s Joumanna Bercetche at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Alan Jope talked about how his firm was managing its operations in the current climate.
“For the last 18 months we’ve seen extraordinary input cost pressure … it runs across petrochemical derived products, agricultural derived products, energy, transport, logistics,” he said.
“It’s been feeding through for quite some time now and we’ve been accelerating the rate of price increases that we’ve had to put into the market,” he added.
“So far, the consumer response in terms of volume softness has been very muted, the consumer has been very resilient,” Jope said.
“We do see the prospect of higher volume elasticity as winter energy costs hit, as households’ savings levels come down and that buffer goes away and as prices continue to rise,” he said.
Jope was asked if he foresaw any moderation when it came to inflationary pressures. “It’s very hard to predict the future of commodity markets,” he replied.
“Even if you press the oil major CEOs, they’ll be a little cagey on giving an outlook on energy prices.”
Unilever’s view, he said, was that “we know for sure there’s more inflationary pressure coming through in our input costs.”
“We might be, at the moment, around peak inflation, but probably not peak prices,” he went on to state.
“There’s further pricing to come through, but the rate of price increases is probably peaking around now.”
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Unilever has a global footprint and owns brands including Ben & Jerry’s, Magnum and Wall’s.
During his interview with CNBC, Jope touched upon the international dimension of his business and how the experience of operating in a range of markets was steering it through the current climate.
“Nobody running a business at the moment has really lived through global inflation, it’s a long time since we’ve had global inflation,” he said.
“But we’re used to high levels of inflation from doing business in places like Argentina, or Turkey, or parts of Southeast Asia,” he added.
“So we do have a playbook, and the playbook is that it’s important to protect the shape of the P&L by landing price.”
“And so it’s not that we’ve taken more price, we just started acting earlier than many of our peers, and the guidance that we’ve been getting from our investors is they support that and feel that that’s an appropriate action.”
This, Jope explained, was “something we have learned from being in these high inflationary markets, though … much of that inflation is currency weakness, historically.”
“But now those markets are having to deal with the combination of commodity pressure and currency weakness. So our instinct is to act quickly when costs start coming through.”
On Friday, Russian energy supplier Gazprom said it would not resume its supply of natural gas to Germany through the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming a malfunctioning turbine.
Hannibal Hanschke | Reuters
The European Union’s rejection of Russian energy commodities following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine won’t last forever, Qatar’s Energy Minister said during an energy conference over the weekend.
“The Europeans today are saying there’s no way we’re going back” to buying Russian gas, Saad Sherida al-Kaabi, energy minister and head of state gas company QatarEnergy, said at the Atlantic Council Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.
“We’re all blessed to have to be able to forget and to forgive. And I think things get mended with time… they learn from that situation and probably have a much bigger diversity [of energy intake].”
Europe has long been Russia’s largest customer of most energy commodities, especially natural gas. EU countries have dramatically cut down their imports of Russian energy supplies, imposing sanctions in response to Moscow’s brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Gas exports from Russian state energy giant Gazprom to Switzerland and the EU fell by 55% in 2022, the company said earlier this month. The cut in imports has dramatically increased energy costs for Europe, sending leaders and oil and gas executives scrambling to develop new sources of energy and shore up alternative supplies.
“But Russian gas is going back, in my view, to Europe,” al-Kaabi said.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has so far taken tens, if not hundreds of thousands of lives, destroyed entire cities, and exiled more than 8 million people as refugees. Russian missiles and drone strikes regularly hit and decimate residential buildings, schools, hospitals, and vital energy infrastructure, leaving millions of Ukrainians without power.
A residential building destroyed after a Russian missile attack on Jan. 15, 2023, in Dnipro, Ukraine.
Global Images Ukraine | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Europe has managed to avert a major crisis this winter, owing to mild weather and substantial stocks of gas amassed over the last year. Energy officials and analysts warn of a more precarious situation in late 2023, when these supplies run out.
“Luckily they [Europe] haven’t had a very high demand for gas due to the warmer weather,” al-Kaabi said. “The issue is what’s going to happen when they want to replenish their storages this coming year, and there isn’t much gas coming into the market until ’25, ’26, ’27 … So I think it’s going to be a volatile situation for some time.”
Later during the conference, CNBC spoke to the CEO of Italian energy company Eni, Claudio Descalzi, who pushed back on the Qatari minister’s comments.
“I think that the war is still there, and it is not easy to forgive anybody when you kill innocent people, women and children and bomb hospitals,” Descalzi told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble. “And so I think that more than forgive, we have to understand the sense of life for our words. For our modern war, because that is [what is] happening there. So, when we talk about energy security, we talk about financing how you allocate your money, how much in the gas, how much in the renewables, and you think that people are killing close to you or far from you… That is the priority, that is the thing we have to solve.”
“Otherwise,” the CEO added, “there is a big elephant in the room. We hide to ourselves this kind of stuff, and when we hide something [it] is coming back bigger and bigger. If you’re forgiving, it means you are not looking at that, you are not thinking we have to solve this kind of issue.”
Descalzi said that the war in Ukraine and energy security are front of mind for him and his industry. Italy has dramatically reduced its reliance on Russian gas by replacing it with energy sources from alternative producers, such as Algeria. On Sunday, Eni announced a new gas discovery in an offshore field in the eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Egypt.
“Honestly, energy security is a big problem… but I think that, in 2023, the priority is Ukraine,” Descalzi said. That’s from my point of view. It’s Russia. It’s the relationship with China.”
“I’m not a politician,” he added, “but I think you cannot manage and talk about money and talk about energy and industry — it’s clear that, if you are not looking at that, a lot of people are going to suffer. But from the other side you talk about freedom, democracy, and people that are dying.”
