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Tag: Environmental activism

  • SensoRy AI, Founded by Teen Inventor, Receives Funding and Partners With Irvine Ranch Conservancy and Orange County Fire Authority to Test Climate Solution

    SensoRy AI, Founded by Teen Inventor, Receives Funding and Partners With Irvine Ranch Conservancy and Orange County Fire Authority to Test Climate Solution

    Ryan Honary to work with organizations to further evaluate his “AI-Driven Wireless Mesh Sensor Network for Early Detection and Growth Prediction of Environmental Hazards”

    Press Release
    –

    Dec 14, 2022


    IRVINE, Calif., December 14, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    At a time when many teens are planning for the near future, 15-year-old Ryan Honary is looking further ahead. He is passionate about saving the planet, and thanks to a new partnership between his company, Sensory AI, the nonprofit Irvine Ranch Conservancy (IRC) and, most recently, the Orange County Fire Authority (OCFA), he’s closer to creating a better future for humankind.

    “I am grateful and excited for the opportunity to work alongside Dr. Nathan Gregory and Chief Brian Fennessy,” said Honary. “This new partnership with IRC and OCFA advances the SensoRy AI solution with the goal of protecting lives and the environment throughout California and around the globe.”

    The Newport Beach teen invented an AI-driven early wildfire detection system. Utilizing a wireless mesh network of sensors and AI capable of predicting spread patterns, Honary’s low-cost network can be deployed anywhere and communicate in real-time via an app. A research grant from the U.S. Navy enabled SensoRy AI to build a team and further develop and test the technology in rugged environments. Honary was recently invited by OCFA Chief Brian Fennessy to present the SensoRy AI solution at UC San Diego’s WiFire Lab and received favorable feedback. 

    Honary began working with Nathan Gregory, Ph.D., Chief Conservation Officer of IRC, in 2021 to develop field applications for his concept. IRC manages 30,000 acres of fire-prone urban wildlands in Orange County. The system was field tested at IRC’s Native Seed Farm earlier this year with successful results.

    “Ryan’s solution will enable us to monitor key factors that contribute to preservation and stewardship of our local wildlands. We believe this technology has applications that can potentially change conservation and land management everywhere,” said Dr. Gregory.

    IRC sees such broad potential in this technology that it recently invested $250,000 of its own funds that will allow the network to be tested more broadly. In addition, Dr. Gregory will be joining the SensoRy AI Technical Advisory Board.

    In November, OCFA Chief Fennessy also joined SensoRy AI as an advisor, and his team of fire-fighting professionals are assisting Ryan in further developing his platform.

    “This technology has enormous potential to keep our first responders and our communities safe by helping predict, detect, and suppress wildfires,” said Fennessy.

    Honary was recently selected to present his story and vision at the upcoming UNESCO Learning Planet Festival on Jan. 23-28, 2023, in Paris, France. His presentation is titled “The Future of Artificial Intelligence-Driven Environmental Solutions.” The Learning Planet Festival brings together hundreds of pioneering organizations and activists learning to take care of oneself, others and the planet.

    About Ryan Honary

    Ryan Honary is an award-winning 15-year-old student at Stanford Online High School, who has been putting his STEM-fueled passion for people and the environment into real action for years. While not developing science-based solutions to local and global climate challenges, Honary loves playing competitive tennis and, in support of a local not-for-profit, teaching it to autistic youth; singing and shredding on guitar; and surfing in his hometown of Newport Beach, CA. Follow him on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

    Honary’s solution was originally developed in response to the devastation of the 2018 Camp Fire, including the deaths of 85 people and the destruction of over 18,000 structures at a cost of more than $16.5 billion. The invention earned him Grand Prize at the 2019 Ignite Innovation Student Challenge and established the Early Wildfire Detection Network, for which he was named the 2020 American Red Cross Disaster Services Hero for Orange County. He also earned a spot in the Top 30 Finalists at the 2020 Broadcom Masters.

    About Sensory AI

    In March 2020, Ryan Honary’s early wildfire detection system won the prestigious Office of Naval Research (ONR) Naval Science grant. This grant led to the formation of Sensory AI. The company has since received multiple rounds of funding from ONR for continued research and development.

    About Irvine Ranch Conservancy

    Irvine Ranch Conservancy is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to restore, protect, and enhance the ecological health of urban wildlands in a way that fosters compatible human behaviors and inspires connections and partnerships. The Conservancy manages and restores approximately 30,000 acres of rare wildlands in Orange County, California, in partnership with public landowners.

    About Orange County Fire Authority

    Orange County Fire Authority is a regional fire service agency that serves 23 cities and all unincorporated areas in Orange County. OCFA protects over 2 million residents from its 77 fire stations located throughout Orange County. OCFA, founded in 1995, is a premier public safety agency providing superior fire protection and medical emergency services to our communities.

    Source: SensoryAI

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  • Swiss climate activists lament election of oil lobbyist

    Swiss climate activists lament election of oil lobbyist

    BERLIN — Swiss environmentalists criticized the election Wednesday of a top car- and oil-industry lobbyist to the new government, calling it a “disaster for climate policy.”

    Lawmakers picked Albert Roesti of the nationalist Swiss People’s Party as one of two new members of the Cabinet, or Federal Council.

    The election was necessary following the retirement of two long-serving members in the seven-seat government, which traditionally includes politicians from all the country’s major parties.

    Roesti was until recently the president of Switzerland’s fuel importer association Swissoil. He remains the president of Auto Schweiz, the association of car importers in Switzerland. As part of his lobby work, Roesti successfully campaigned against a bill designed to reduce the Alpine nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

    “In the middle of the climate crisis the Swiss Parliament has elected the top car and oil lobbyist to the Federal Council,” the group Climate Strike said in a statement. “This is a disaster not just for Switzerland, but our entire generation.”

    It called on other members of the government not to let Roesti head the Ministry for Environment, Energy and Transport. That post became vacant with the retirement of Simonetta Sommaruga, one of two departing ministers.

    Also elected to the council Wednesday was Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, a member of the left-leaning Social Democrats.

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  • Prince William, like his father, prioritizes the environment

    Prince William, like his father, prioritizes the environment

    BOSTON — Prince William capped a three-day visit to Boston by meeting with President Joe Biden to share his vision for safeguarding the environment before attending a gala event Friday evening where he sounded an optimistic tone about solving the world’s environmental problems through “hope, optimism and urgency.”

    The Prince of Wales paid homage to the late President John F. Kennedy, saying his Earthshot Prize was inspired by Kennedy’s audacious moonshot speech in 1962 that mobilized the nation to put astronauts on the moon. That same sense of urgency and scale is needed now to protect the environment, William said.

    “In the same way the space effort six decades ago created jobs, boosted economies and provided hope, so too can the solutions borne of tonight’s Earthshot Prize winners,” William said.

    The second annual Earthshot Prize offered 1 million pounds ($1.2 million) in prize money to each of the winners in five separate categories: nature protection, clean air, ocean revival, waste elimination and climate change. The winners and all 15 finalists will receive help in expanding their projects to meet global demand.

    The winners, announced at Boston’s MGM Music Hall, were:

    — A female-founded startup that’s providing cleaner-burning biomass stoves in Africa

    — A United Kingdom company making biodegradable packaging from seaweed

    — A “greenhouse-in-a-box” concept created to increase yields on small farms in India

    — A technique for transforming atmospheric carbon into rock in Oman in the Middle East

    — A woman-led effort to create a new generation of indigenous rangers in Australia.

    Providing the star power for the glitzy show were Annie Lennox, Ellie Goulding and Chloe x Halle live in Boston, and Billie Eilish performing remotely. The event also featured videos narrated by naturalist David Attenborough and actor Cate Blanchett. Prizes were presented by actor Rami Malek, comedian Catherine O’Hara, and actor and activist Shailene Woodley.

    The entertainers were eager to help.

    “It’s the greatest crisis of our lifetime, and I appreciate what Prince William is doing,” Malek said before heading into the venue. “And in the next 10 years I think the impact will be staggering. And we can really effect change in the greatest way with these innovators who are being awarded this evening.”

    Before the event, William met privately for 30 minutes with Biden after the two shook hands and spoke briefly in the cold near the water outside of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library and Museum. As William walked down the steps in his suit, Biden, wearing in a black winter coat, shouted: “Where’s your topcoat?”

    William also met Caroline Kennedy, the ambassador to Australia and the late president’s daughter. William toured the museum with Kennedy and told her that her father was “the man who inspired our mission.”

    William and his wife, Kate, earlier attended a welcome Wednesday at City Hall and then a Boston Celtics game before the royal couple spent much of Thursday hearing about the threats of climate change and solutions in the works.

    William became heir apparent less than three months ago with the death of his grandmother, the queen, but he already has been crowned Britain’s chief environmentalist. That was apparent during the Boston visit, which earned praise for drawing attention to pollution and climate change and the need to scale up solutions.

    “I just appreciate that they are using platform and publicity to bring attention to meaningful climate work,” said Joe Christo, managing director of Stone Living Lab, which researches nature-based approaches to climate adaptation and was among those who met the royal couple at Boston Harbor on Thursday.

    “I do know his dad is a big environmentalist,” he said. “He seems to be doing a great job continuing that legacy.”

    William is following in the footsteps of his environmentally minded grandfather Prince Philip — the late husband of Queen Elizabeth II — and more recently his father and Elizabeth’s successor, King Charles III.

    William’s father, in his former capacity as prince, was for decades one of Britain’s most prominent environmental voices — blasting the ills of pollution. Last year, he stood before world leaders at a U.N. climate conference in Scotland and suggested the threats posed by climate change and biodiversity loss were no different than those posed by the coronavirus pandemic.

    Now that he is king, Charles is expected to be more careful with his words and must stay out of politics and government policy, in accordance with the traditions of Britain’s constitutional monarchy. This year, he did not attend the U.N. climate conference, which was held in Egypt.

    The caution presents an opportunity for William to step into that role as the royal family’s environmental advocate and speak more forcefully about the issues once associated with his father.

    There is no better example than the Earthshot Prize.

    “It’s a huge deal to Prince William,” Joe Little, the managing editor of Majesty Magazine. “He knows he can attract attention from the most important people. That really is the core of the Boston trip.”

    William and Kate got a firsthand look at some recent innovations at a green technology startup incubator called Greentown Labs, in Somerville. Among them were solar-powered autonomous boats and low-carbon cement.

    “Climate change is a global problem, so it’s so important to have global leaders talking about the importance of taking action,” said Lara Cottingham, vice president of strategy policy and climate impact for Greentown Labs.

    The couple’s first trip to the U.S. since 2014 is part of the royal family’s efforts to change its international image. After Elizabeth’s death, Charles has made clear that his will be a slimmed-down monarchy, with less pomp and ceremony than its predecessors. William and Kate arrived in Boston on a commercial British Airways flight.

    ———

    Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report in Boston.

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  • Fire plan would cut 2.4 million New Jersey Pinelands trees

    Fire plan would cut 2.4 million New Jersey Pinelands trees

    BASS RIVER TOWNSHIP, N.J. — Up to 2.4 million trees would be cut down as part of a project to prevent major wildfires in a federally protected New Jersey forest heralded as a unique environmental treasure.

    New Jersey environmental officials say the plan to kill trees in a section of Bass River State Forest is designed to better protect against catastrophic wildfires, adding it will mostly affect small, scrawny trees — not the towering giants for which the Pinelands National Refuge is known and loved.

    But the plan, adopted Oct. 14 by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission and set to begin in April, has split environmentalists. Some say it is a reasonable and necessary response to the dangers of wildfires, while others say it is an unconscionable waste of trees that would no longer be able to store carbon as climate change imperils the globe.

    Foes are also upset about the possible use of herbicides to prevent invasive species regeneration, noting that the Pinelands sits atop an aquifer that contains some of the purest drinking water in the nation.

    And some of them fear the plan could be a back door to logging the protected woodlands under the guise of fire protection, despite the state’s denials.

    “In order to save the forest, they have to cut down the forest,” said Jeff Tittel, the retired former director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, calling the plan “shameful” and “Orwellian.”

    Pinelands Commissioner Mark Lohbauer voted against the plan, calling it ill-advised on many levels. He says it could harm rare snakes, and adds that he has researched forestry tactics from western states and believes that tree-thinning is ineffective in preventing large wildfires.

    “We are in an era of climate change; it’s incumbent on us to do our utmost to preserve these trees that are sequestering carbon,” he said. “If we don’t have an absolutely essential reason for cutting down trees, we shouldn’t do it.”

    The plan involves about 1,300 acres (526 hectares), a miniscule percentage of the 1.1-million-acre (445,150-hectare) Pinelands preserve, which enjoys federal and state protection, and has been named a unique biosphere by the United Nations.

    Most of the trees to be killed are 2 inches (5 centimeters) or less in diameter, the state said. Dense undergrowth of these smaller trees can act as “ladder fuel,” carrying fire from the forest floor up to the treetops, where flames can spread rapidly and wind can intensify to whip up blazes, the state Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement.

    A Pinelands commissioner calculated that 2.4 million trees would be removed by using data from the state’s application, multiplying the percentage of tree density reduction by the amount of land affected.

    The department would not say whether it believes that number is accurate, nor would it offer a number of its own. But it did say “the total number of trees thinned could be significant.”

    “This is like liquid gasoline in the Pinelands,” said Todd Wyckoff, chief of the New Jersey Forest Service, as he touched a scrawny pine tree of the type that will most often be cut during the project. “I see a forest at risk from fire. I look at this as restoring the forest to more of what it should be.”

    Tree thinning is an accepted form of forest management in many areas of the country, done in the name of preventing fires from becoming larger than they otherwise might be, and is supported by government foresters as well as timber industry officials. But some conservation groups say thinning does not work.

    New Jersey says the cutting will center on the smallest snow-bent pitch pine trees, “and an intact canopy will be maintained across the site.”

    The state’s application, however, envisions that canopy cover will be reduced from 68% to 43% on over 1,000 acres (405 hectares), with even larger decreases planned for smaller sections.

    And scrawny trees aren’t the only ones that will be cut: Many thick, tall trees on either side of some roads will be cut down to create more of a fire break, where firefighters can defend against a spreading blaze.

    The affected area has about 2,000 trees per acre — four times the normal density in the Pinelands, according to the state.

    Most of the cut trees will be ground into wood chips that will remain on the forest floor, eventually returning to the soil, the department said, adding, “It is not anticipated that any material of commercial value will be produced because of this project.”

    Some environmentalists fear that might not be true, that felled trees could be harvested and sold as cord wood, wood pellets or even used in making glue.

    “I’m opposed to the removal of any of that material,” Lohbauer said. “That material belongs in the forest where it will support habitat and eventually be recycled” into the soil. “Even if they use it for wood pellets, which are popular for burning in wood stoves, that releases the carbon.”

    John Cecil, an assistant commissioner with the department, said his agency is not looking to make a profit from any wood products that might be removed from the site.

    But he said that if some felled trees “could be put to good use and generate revenue for the taxpayers, why wouldn’t we do that? If there’s a way to do this that preserves the essential goals of this plan and brings some revenue back in, that’s not the end of the world. Maybe you could get a couple fence posts out of these trees.”

    Created by an act of Congress in 1978, the Pinelands district occupies 22% of New Jersey’s land area, is home to 135 rare plant and animal species, and is the largest body of open space on the mid-Atlantic seaboard between Richmond, Virginia, and Boston. It also includes an aquifer that is the source of 17 trillion gallons (64 trillion liters) of drinking water.

    “It is unacceptable to be cutting down trees in a climate emergency, and cutting 2.4 million small trees will severely reduce the future ability to store carbon,” said Bill Wolfe, a former department official who runs an environmental blog.

    Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, supports the plan.

    The group said opponents are using the number of trees to be cut “to (elicit) shock and horror,” saying that by focusing on the number rather than size of trees to be cut, they “are quite literally missing the forest for the trees. The resulting forest will be a healthy native Pine Barrens habitat.”

    ———

    This story corrects the name of agency in paragraph 13 to New Jersey Forest Service, not Forest Fire Service.

    ———

    Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC

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  • Young people just got a louder voice on global climate issues — and could soon be shaping policy

    Young people just got a louder voice on global climate issues — and could soon be shaping policy

    COP27 was another milestone for young climate activists as they became official climate policy stakeholders under the ACE Action Plan.

    Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

    Young people have long been at the forefront of discussions and activism around climate change.

    This year’s COP27 was another milestone for them — they became official stakeholders in climate policy under the ACE action plan, which was created at COP27 in Egypt over the last few weeks.

    Young people’s voices and opinions will now be much more impactful when it comes to the design and implementation of climate policies, explains Hailey Campbell, one of the negotiators who made it happen.

    “Official recognition as stakeholders in the ACE Action Plan gives young people the international backing we need to demand our formal inclusion in climate decision-making and implementation,” she told CNBC’s Make It.

    Campbell is also the ACE co-contact point for YOUNGO, the youth constituency for the United Nations’ framework convention for climate change and the co-executive director of the U.S.-based organization Care About Climate.

    What is the ACE action plan?

    ACE stands for Action for Climate Empowerment and is outlined in article 12 of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Improving education and awareness around climate change by making research easily accessible is one of its aims. Another goal of the article, and the new plan developed at COP27 to support it, is making sure governments and organizations around the world work together on policies and take opinions from the public and stakeholder groups into account when making decisions.

    Srishti Singh from the Indian Youth Climate Network, who worked alongside Campbell at COP27, told CNBC’s Make It that the new ACE plan is key when it comes to different groups being considered in climate policy.

    “Strengthening ACE in climate policy means better participation of stakeholders at local, regional, and global levels, including youth,” she said.

    Young participants meet on a discussion panel in Youth and Children Pavilion during the COP27 UN Climate Change Conference.

    Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

    What does this mean for climate policy?

    In short, being official stakeholders means young people get a bigger seat at the table. Campbell hopes that now, they will be able to shape policies that affect their future and work “with those who will not be here to see the impacts of decisions made today.”

    The youth constituency should also see additional funding and support to take part in future COP conferences and other events about climate change, she adds.

    Especially in recent years, young people have been some of the most vocal about strong climate targets and policies. Millions joined school strikes around the world, others took part in U.N. youth climate summits or made headway as activists, like 19-year old Greta Thunberg, or reached political leadership positions liked 28-year old Ricarda Lang, who is the co-leader of the German Green party.

    This year’s COP27 also saw the first ever official youth representative, Omnia El Omrani, fight for the inclusion of young people’s voices, the launch of a climate youth negotiator program that aims to empower young climate activists from the global south, and the inaugural youth climate forum.

    We know that including more youth creates more ambitious and just outcomes

    Hailey Campbell

    Co-Executive Director at Care About Climate and ACE Co-Contact Point of YOUNGO

    Campbell says the goal was for young people to be at the center of policy-making.

    “When we talk about representation, we don’t just want it at international negotiations and we don’t want to only be consulted. We want it at all levels of government and we want to be partners because action happens on the ground,” she said.

    Her and her colleagues also hope to change the way older generations see climate change and its urgency.

    “We know that including more youth creates more ambitious and just outcomes, so hopefully we will be able to advance quicker action on the climate crisis through our genuine involvement,” Campbell concluded.

    How did they make it happen?

    Most people on YOUNGO’s team had never formally learned negotiation skills. This included Bettina Duerr, a policy officer at Federation Internationales Des Mouvements Catholiques d’Action Paroissial.

    “I did not have specific training or support in this role, but I used experiences from other contexts. Plus, our working group was really supportive throughout,” she told CNBC’s Make It.

    “It helped that I was already in touch with the working group before COP27 and that we planned our strategy,” she added.

    As well as learning from each other, previous networking had put the group in contact with experienced negotiators who gave them advice, Campbell added.

    But their overall strategy boiled down to just three points, she explained. Those included writing out agreements they hoped to reach, partnering with other constituencies and making sure they had other groups in their corner, backing their ideas.

    Duerr and Campbell both described the negotiations as intense, draining and stressful — but their commitment to the cause outweighed this.

    “We’d stop anything we were doing to join last minute meetings with each other and with parties that wanted to champion our perspective,” Campbell said.

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  • UN climate boss settles for no cuts on emissions

    UN climate boss settles for no cuts on emissions

    SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Given an energy crisis in Europe and progress made in helping climate victims, the new climate chief for the United Nations said he’ll settle for a lack of new emissions-cutting action coming out of the now-concluded climate talks in Egypt.

    It could have been worse, UN Executive Secretary for Climate Simon Stiell said in a seaside interview with The Associated Press. The talks did achieve the historic creation of a fund for poor nations that are victims of climate disasters, he said.

    The progress made last year at the global climate meeting in Glasgow was maintained. “There was no backtracking. Which as a result, one could say, is highly unambitious. And I would actually agree,” a tired Stiell said hours after the Egyptian climate talks finished with one last around-the-clock push.

    “To say that … we have, stood still. Yeah, that’s not great,” Stiell said. But he still likes the overall outcome of the first set of climate talks he oversaw, in particular the long-sought compensation fund for nations that didn’t cause warming.

    Outside experts agree with Stiell that nothing was done on the central issue of reducing emissions that cause climate change and disasters like flooding in Pakistan.

    “In the shadow of the energy crisis, there were no major new climate protection commitments at the conference,” said climate scientist Niklas Hohne, founder of the NewClimate Institute in Germany. “Glasgow a year ago was a small but important step in the right direction, with many new national targets and new international initiatives. None of that happened this year.”

    That’s despite the fact that more than 90 nations repeatedly asked — many of them publicly — for the agreement to include a phase down of oil and gas use. The Glasgow agreement calls for a phase down of “unabated coal” — that is, coal burning where the carbon goes into the atmosphere rather than being captured somehow. Poor nations point out that they rely more on coal whereas oil and gas are used more in rich countries. These should also be required to phase down they said. In closing remarks at the talks, Stiell himself called for a phase down of oil and gas.

    But the Egyptian presidency never put the proposal, which came from India, in any of the decision documents. The country that hosts and runs the climate talks has the power to make that choice.

    Critics — including negotiators during the talks — blasted the Egyptian presidency and its agenda setting. Environmental groups repeatedly pointed out Egypt’s dependence on exports of natural gas, its role as operator of Suez Canal petroleum traffic and income from neighboring oil states. Oil and natural gas are both principal contributors to climate change.

    Next year’s climate talks will be held in the United Arab Emirates, a major oil power. Environmental advocates and outside experts fear that oil and gas phase down language won’t get a fair shake next year either.

    Asked about the wisdom of having fossil fuel exporting countries host and control climate talks, Stiell said: “They are part of the problem, but they are also part of the solution.” To try to manage this process without their involvement, would give “an incomplete picture,” he said.

    “The global economy is still based certainly on oil and gas. And that is the challenge,” Stiell said.

    Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a climate scientist, called this a serious problem.

    “The massive presence of oil and gas interests at the COP undermines the integrity of the UN climate process and could be slowly eroding its legitimacy,” Hare said. “The suspected influence of petrol states and oil and gas lobbyists on the Egyptian presidency Is unhealthy to say the least.”

    Analyst Alex Scott of E3G said Egypt showed “a sense of willful ignorance” in not considering a document with a call for oil and gas phase down. The influence of petro states on the presidency happens out of site and “is the right question to ask,” she said.

    Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the climate talks president, didn’t answer a shouted question Sunday about oil and gas phase down language.

    Stiell said countries have to keep coming back and putting pressure on each other to include language calling for a phase down on oil and gas. That worked for this year’s key accomplishment — the establishment of a fund for poor nations that are victims of climate disasters.

    But that also took more than 30 years.

    While critics bash Egypt and cite the influence of fossil fuel interests in the lack of action on reducing emissions, also known as mitigation, Stiell attributed the inaction to other things going on.

    He said there were complaints that last year’s climate talks were too mitigation oriented and this year’s talks restored balance.

    “You cannot do too much mitigation!” Hohne responded in an email. The global goal of limiting temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, “remains in intensive care as conditions deteriorate. The conference met the minimum requirements, but that is far from enough.”

    But getting the climate fund was a big and all-consuming accomplishment, Stiell said. Before he took the UN climate chief job this summer, he had been working on it as a cabinet minister for the small island nation of Grenada.

    “This is a 30-year discussion,” Stiell said. “I’ve been involved in that for ten years as a Grenadian minister, hearing just how ‘this can’t be done’ and how ‘this is impossible’.”

    Mohamed Adow of the environmental group Powershift Africa agreed. “COP27 was a surprise precisely because for once the needs of the vulnerable were actually listened to,” he said.

    As he looks back, Stiell said he still has great hope.

    “So progress: incremental, slight, insufficient. A lot more to be done,” Stiell said summing up climate change fighting efforts. “We’re still right there in the middle of crisis mode.”

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

    ———

    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • UN climate boss settles for no cuts on emissions

    UN climate boss settles for no cuts on emissions

    SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Given an energy crisis in Europe and progress made in helping climate victims, the new climate chief for the United Nations said he’ll settle for a lack of new emissions-cutting action coming out of the now-concluded climate talks in Egypt.

    It could have been worse, UN Executive Secretary for Climate Simon Stiell said in a seaside interview with The Associated Press. The talks did achieve the historic creation of a fund for poor nations that are victims of climate disasters, he said.

    The progress made last year at the global climate meeting in Glasgow was maintained. “There was no backtracking. Which as a result, one could say, is highly unambitious. And I would actually agree,” a tired Stiell said hours after the Egyptian climate talks finished with one last around-the-clock push.

    “To say that … we have, stood still. Yeah, that’s not great,” Stiell said. But he still likes the overall outcome of the first set of climate talks he oversaw, in particular the long-sought compensation fund for nations that didn’t cause warming.

    Outside experts agree with Stiell that nothing was done on the central issue of reducing emissions that cause climate change and disasters like flooding in Pakistan.

    “In the shadow of the energy crisis, there were no major new climate protection commitments at the conference,” said climate scientist Niklas Hohne, founder of the NewClimate Institute in Germany. “Glasgow a year ago was a small but important step in the right direction, with many new national targets and new international initiatives. None of that happened this year.”

    That’s despite the fact that more than 90 nations repeatedly asked — many of them publicly — for the agreement to include a phase down of oil and gas use. The Glasgow agreement calls for a phase down of “unabated coal” — that is, coal burning where the carbon goes into the atmosphere rather than being captured somehow. Poor nations point out that they rely more on coal whereas oil and gas are used more in rich countries. These should also be required to phase down they said. In closing remarks at the talks, Stiell himself called for a phase down of oil and gas.

    But the Egyptian presidency never put the proposal, which came from India, in any of the decision documents. The country that hosts and runs the climate talks has the power to make that choice.

    Critics — including negotiators during the talks — blasted the Egyptian presidency and its agenda setting. Environmental groups repeatedly pointed out Egypt’s dependence on exports of natural gas, its role as operator of Suez Canal petroleum traffic and income from neighboring oil states. Oil and natural gas are both principal contributors to climate change.

    Next year’s climate talks will be held in the United Arab Emirates, a major oil power. Environmental advocates and outside experts fear that oil and gas phase down language won’t get a fair shake next year either.

    Asked about the wisdom of having fossil fuel exporting countries host and control climate talks, Stiell said: “They are part of the problem, but they are also part of the solution.” To try to manage this process without their involvement, would give “an incomplete picture,” he said.

    “The global economy is still based certainly on oil and gas. And that is the challenge,” Stiell said.

    Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a climate scientist, called this a serious problem.

    “The massive presence of oil and gas interests at the COP undermines the integrity of the UN climate process and could be slowly eroding its legitimacy,” Hare said. “The suspected influence of petrol states and oil and gas lobbyists on the Egyptian presidency Is unhealthy to say the least.”

    Analyst Alex Scott of E3G said Egypt showed “a sense of willful ignorance” in not considering a document with a call for oil and gas phase down. The influence of petro states on the presidency happens out of site and “is the right question to ask,” she said.

    Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, the climate talks president, didn’t answer a shouted question Sunday about oil and gas phase down language.

    Stiell said countries have to keep coming back and putting pressure on each other to include language calling for a phase down on oil and gas. That worked for this year’s key accomplishment — the establishment of a fund for poor nations that are victims of climate disasters.

    But that also took more than 30 years.

    While critics bash Egypt and cite the influence of fossil fuel interests in the lack of action on reducing emissions, also known as mitigation, Stiell attributed the inaction to other things going on.

    He said there were complaints that last year’s climate talks were too mitigation oriented and this year’s talks restored balance.

    “You cannot do too much mitigation!” Hohne responded in an email. The global goal of limiting temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, “remains in intensive care as conditions deteriorate. The conference met the minimum requirements, but that is far from enough.”

    But getting the climate fund was a big and all-consuming accomplishment, Stiell said. Before he took the UN climate chief job this summer, he had been working on it as a cabinet minister for the small island nation of Grenada.

    “This is a 30-year discussion,” Stiell said. “I’ve been involved in that for ten years as a Grenadian minister, hearing just how ‘this can’t be done’ and how ‘this is impossible’.”

    Mohamed Adow of the environmental group Powershift Africa agreed. “COP27 was a surprise precisely because for once the needs of the vulnerable were actually listened to,” he said.

    As he looks back, Stiell said he still has great hope.

    “So progress: incremental, slight, insufficient. A lot more to be done,” Stiell said summing up climate change fighting efforts. “We’re still right there in the middle of crisis mode.”

    Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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    Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Environmental groups oppose pipeline expansion in Pacific NW

    Environmental groups oppose pipeline expansion in Pacific NW

    SALEM, Ore. — The U.S. government has taken a step toward approving the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest — a move opposed by environmentalists and the attorneys general of Oregon, California and Washington state.

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, announced Friday it has completed an environmental impact statement that concluded the project “would result in limited adverse impacts on the environment.”

    “Most adverse environmental impacts would be temporary or short-term,” the federal agency said.

    A grassroots coalition of environmental groups said the analysis conflicts with climate goals of Pacific Northwest states and fails “to address upstream methane emissions from the harmful practice of fracking.”

    The Gas Transmission Northwest pipeline belongs to TC Energy of Calgary, Canada – the same company behind the now-abandoned Keystone XL crude oil pipeline.

    Gas Transmission Northwest proposes to modify three existing compressor stations along the pipeline — in Kootenai County, Idaho; Walla Walla County, Washington; and Sherman County, Oregon — to boost capacity by about 150 million cubic feet per day of natural gas. The company says the project is necessary to meet consumer demand.

    The 1,377-mile (2,216-kilomter) pipeline runs from the Canadian border, through a corner of Idaho, and into Washington state and Oregon, connecting with a pipeline going into California.

    In August, the attorneys general of Oregon, Washington state and California asked the FERC to deny the proposal, saying the expansion is expected to result in more than 3.24 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, including methane and carbon dioxide.

    “This project undermines Washington state’s efforts to fight climate change,” Washington state Attorney General Ferguson said back then. “This pipeline is bad for the environment and bad for consumers.”

    The grassroots coalition said the federal study didn’t adequately address harmful impacts on the climate caused by the project, including by fracking to obtain the natural gas. The energy industry uses the technique to extract oil and gas from rock by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water, sand or gravel and chemicals. But the technique increases emissions of methane, an extraordinarily potent greenhouse gas.

    “FERC’s approach will worsen the climate crisis, downplaying the impacts of a proposal that will pollute our communities, impact health and safety, and create millions of tons of climate-changing pollution each year,” said Lauren Goldberg, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, an environmental group based in Hood River, Oregon.

    The regulatory commission’s study noted that its staff was unable to assess the project’s contribution to greenhouse gases “through any objective analysis.”

    “Climate change is a global concern,” the federal study said. “However, for this analysis, we will focus on the existing and potential cumulative climate change impacts in the project area.”

    TC Energy said Saturday that it is reviewing the environmental impact statement, which recommended a few mitigation measures.

    The company has “secured long-term agreements with customers for 100% of the project capacity,” TC Energy said in an email. “This further demonstrates the need for secure energy to supplement renewables as we work toward a cleaner energy future.”

    FERC is expected to make its final decision on the proposal on Feb. 16, the environmental coalition said.

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  • Washington bans fish-farming net pens, citing salmon threat

    Washington bans fish-farming net pens, citing salmon threat

    SEATTLE — Washington banned fish-farming with net pens in state waters on Friday, citing danger to struggling native salmon.

    Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz issued an executive order banning the aquaculture method, which involves raising fish in large floating pens anchored in the water and has been practiced in Puget Sound for more than three decades.

    California, Oregon and Alaska have already outlawed net-pen aquaculture, and Canada is working on a plan to phase it out of British Columbia’s coastal waters by 2025. Supporters say fish-farming is an environmentally safe way to feed the world’s growing population; critics argue that it can spread disease to native stocks and degrade the environment.

    “As we’ve seen too clearly here in Washington, there is no way to safely farm fish in open sea net pens without jeopardizing our struggling native salmon,” Franz said. “I’m proud to stand with the rest of the West Coast today by saying our waters are far too important to risk for fish farming profits.”

    Salmon aquaculture is among the fastest-growing food production systems in the world, according to the World Wildlife Foundation. It accounts for about 70% of the market. In 2018 the World Resources Institute released a report that said the industry needs to more than double by 2050 to meet the seafood demands of 10 billion people.

    Since 2016, all of the net pens in Washington’s marine waters have been owned by the same company — New Brunswick, Canada-based seafood giant Cooke Aquaculture. In a statement earlier this week, after the state said it would terminate the company’s remaining leases in Puget Sound, the company said it was disappointed.

    “Environmental organizations and Commissioner Franz are choosing to ignore the fact that farm-raised fish is one of the healthiest and most efficient ways to feed the global population with a minimal environmental impact and the lowest carbon footprint of any animal protein,” Cooke said. “Farmers work closely with world-renowned scientists from academia, government, and the private sector to develop rigorous standards and implement best practices for fish health and environmental protection.”

    In 2017, a net pen operated by Cooke off Cypress Island, near the San Juan archipelago, collapsed and released 260,000 nonnative Atlantic salmon in Puget Sound. The escape prompted a frantic response by the Lummi Indian tribe, which mobilized its fishing crews to capture tens of thousands of the Atlantic salmon before they could intermingle or breed with native salmon.

    The company argued that the fish were sterile and would simply die without threatening native salmon stocks, but the Legislature responded in 2018 and banned raising nonnative fish in the pens.

    Cooke transitioned to raising native steelhead, but many Native American tribes and environmental groups, including Wild Fish Conservancy, still objected, saying that the unnaturally large clusters of farmed fish spread disease to wild populations and that their bulk feeding and excretions degrade the marine environment.

    Several studies have found that young sockeye salmon from British Columbia’s Fraser watershed were infected with higher levels of sea lice after swimming past fish pens, The Seattle Times reported. And in March, an audit revealed sea lice counts at about five times the legal limit at a farm in Clayoquot Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The lice can affect salmon growth, and in severe cases, cause death.

    “It’s about the disease vectors and how that can escape into wild populations,” said Todd Woodard, natural resources director for the Samish Indian Nation. “When you say, ‘We’re raising native fish,’ native fish are not raised and reared in those kinds of concentrated environments.”

    After the 2017 collapse, Washington’s Department of Natural Resources ramped up its inspections of net pens. In Port Angeles, on the Olympic Peninsula, the department terminated a net-pen lease for failing to maintain the facility in a safe condition and operating in an unauthorized area. Cooke challenged the decision unsuccessfully in court.

    And earlier this week, the state terminated Cooke Aquaculture’s remaining net-pen leases, in Rich Passage near Bainbridge Island and near Hope Island in Skagit Bay. The company has until Dec. 14 to finish steelhead farming and to start deconstructing its equipment.

    The decision will force Cooke to kill 332,000 juvenile steelhead that were planned to be stocked at its two remaining net pens next year, the company said.

    “This is a big victory for everyone who values the Puget Sound ecosystem,” Suquamish Tribe Chairman Leonard Forsman said, according to The Seattle Times. “This action eliminates a harmful impact in our ancestral waters. The Rich Passage net pens have … blocked and polluted our fishing grounds for too long, and we are relieved to know they will be removed, restoring our waters back to a more natural state.”

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  • Just Stop Oil pauses UK highway protest that snarled traffic

    Just Stop Oil pauses UK highway protest that snarled traffic

    LONDON — British climate activists who have blocked roads and splattered artworks with soup said Friday they are suspending a days-long protest that has clogged a major highway around London.

    The group Just Stop Oil, which wants the U.K. government to halt new oil and gas projects, has sparked headlines, debate and a government crackdown on disruptive protests since it launched its actions earlier this year.

    The group said Friday it was pausing its campaign of “civil resistance” on the M25 highway that encircles London. Over the last four days, its activists have climbed gantries above the highway, forcing it to close in several places.

    Police say a motorcycle officer was injured Wednesday in a collision with trucks during a rolling roadblock sparked by the protest.

    “We are giving the government another chance to sit down and discuss with us and meet our demand, which is the obvious no-brainer that we all want to see, which is no new oil in the U.K.,” activist Emma Brown told the BBC.

    In recent months, Just Stop Oil members have blocked roads and bridges, often gluing themselves to the roadway to make them harder to move. Police say 677 people have been arrested, 111 of whom were charged with offenses. The protesters have been berated and at times physically removed by irate motorists.

    Last month, activists from the group dumped two cans of tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” which was behind glass, at the National Gallery in London.

    Climate activists have staged similar protests in other European cities, gluing themselves to Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl With a Pearl Earring” in The Hague and throwing mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum.

    On Friday, two climate activists tried in vain to glue themselves to Norwegian artist Edvard Munch’s 1893 masterpiece “The Scream” at an Oslo museum, police said.

    Part of a wave of youthful direct-action protest groups around the world, Just Stop Oil is backed by the U.S.-based Climate Emergency Fund, set up to support disruptive environmental protests.

    University of Maryland social scientist Dana Fisher, who studies activists, has said the protesters are part of a “new radical flank” of the environmental movement whose actions are geared at gaining maximum media attention.

    Some environmentalists argue the disruptive protests alienate potential supporters.

    Just Stop Oil defended its tactics on Friday, saying that “under British law, people in this country have a right to cause disruption to prevent greater harm — we will not stand by.”

    In response to protests by Extinction Rebellion and other direct-action groups, Britain’s Conservative government this year toughened police powers to shut down disruptive protests and increased penalties for obstructing roads, which can now bring a prison sentence.

    Even tougher moves were rejected by Parliament, but the government plans to try again to pass a law that would make it a criminal offense to interfere with infrastructure.

    Civil liberties groups have decried the moves as restrictions on free speech and the right to protest.

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • UN experts urge stringent rules to stop net zero greenwash

    UN experts urge stringent rules to stop net zero greenwash

    SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — Companies pledging to get their emissions down to net zero better make sure they’ve got a credible plan and aren’t just making false promises, U.N. experts said in a report Tuesday urging tough standards on emissions cutting vows.

    Released at the the U.N.’s flagship climate conference in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, the group of experts set out a number of strict recommendations for businesses, banks, and local governments making net zero pledges to ensure that their promises amount to meaningful action instead of “bogus” assurances. Countries are not included in the group’s scope as their emissions-cutting commitments are set out in the 2015 Paris deal.

    The group called the report a roadmap to prevent net zero from being “undermined by false claims, ambiguity and “greenwash.”

    United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed the group exactly a year ago at last year’s U.N. climate summit to draw up principles and recommendations aimed at clarifying the confusion around the growing number of net zero claims made by businesses and organizations. There’s been little transparency or uniform standards when it comes to net zero pledges, resulting in a boom in the number of hard to verify claims, the U.N. experts and environmental groups say.

    “Using bogus ‘net zero’ pledges to cover up massive fossil fuel expansion is reprehensible. It is rank deception,” Guterres said at the COP27 summit. “This toxic cover-up could push our world over the climate cliff. The sham must end.”

    Since the Paris Agreement in 2015 set a global target of limiting temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) there’s been a groundswell of support for the concept of “net zero” — drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions and canceling out the rest — as the main way to meet that goal.

    So-called non-state actors include corporations, investors, and local and regional governments, which aren’t covered by the Paris Agreement’s requirements. Their voluntary carbon cutting pledges must be “ambitious, have integrity and transparency, be credible and fair,” the experts said.

    Among its 10 specific recommendations, businesses can’t claim to be net zero if they continue to invest or build new fossil fuel supplies, deforestation or other environmentally destructive projects. They can’t buy cheap carbon offset credits “that often lack integrity instead of immediately cutting their own emissions.”

    Guterres said he was deeply concerned about lack of “standards, regulations and rigor” in the market for voluntary carbon credits. Climate experts say offsets can be problematic because there’s no guarantee they’ll deliver on reducing emissions.

    Lobbying to undermine ambitious government climate policies is a no-no, the experts said. And companies can’t focus only on emissions they generate directly from, say, manufacturing but have to include all the carbon dioxide spewed along the way in their sourcing supply chains for parts and raw materials.

    “I think these are kind of no-nonsense, practical things that a regular person would expect,” Catherine McKenna, who heads up the group of 17 high-level experts that authored the report, told the Associated Press.

    The guidelines would help consumers who “want to choose products that are good for the environment and mean that the company is tackling climate action” and young people looking for jobs who “don’t want to work for climate laggards,” McKenna said.

    Business, environmental and corporate watchdog groups generally supported the proposals.

    “This surge of interest from the corporate sector to zero out emissions is truly inspiring,” said Ani Dasgupta, CEO of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, cautioning that “any corporate net-zero targets with loopholes or weak guardrails would put our planet and billions of people in peril.”

    In order to keep the Earth from warming less than 1.5 degrees, the U.N. says carbon dioxide emissions must peak by 2025, fall by nearly half by 2030, and to reach net zero by the middle of the century.

    The only way to do that now is to reduce the amount of heat trapping greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere and balance out the remaining emissions by permanently removing them, through planting trees, or through technologies yet untested at scale such as capturing carbon emissions at sources such as factory smokestacks and storing them underground.

    Along the way, net zero has become a corporate buzzword for companies and groups seeking to burnish their green credentials, though environmental activists worry it’s becoming greenwash.

    McDonald’s has opened net zero restaurants in the United States and United Kingdom powered by solar panels and wind turbines. Airline group IATA set a long term goal for the aviation industry to reach net zero by 2050. Even oil companies have jumped on the bandwagon. Chevron touts its “net zero aspiration” and Shell flaunts its “drive for net zero emissions.”

    Private equity firm Carlyle Group was an early adopter of net zero commitment, but did not include its largest oil and gas investment in a recent financial risk report on greenhouse gas emissions.

    Organizers of this year’s soccer world cup hosted by Qatar say the massive building spree of stadiums, highways and subway system for the event was all carbon neutral — a claim experts have cast doubt on.

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    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • ‘Marxist environmentalist’ and author Mike Davis dies at 76

    ‘Marxist environmentalist’ and author Mike Davis dies at 76

    SAN DIEGO — Mike Davis, an author, activist and self-defined “Marxist environmentalist” whose greatest fears drove him to anticipate riots, fires and disease in such bestsellers as “City of Quartz” and “The Ecology of Fear,” has died at age 76.

    Davis died Tuesday after a long battle with esophageal cancer, his friend Jon Wiener announced this week in an online posting for The Nation, a progressive magazine. Wiener, a historian who with Davis wrote “Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties,” told The Associated Press that Davis died in San Diego.

    Davis, dubbed by the Los Angeles Times as the prophet Jeremiah of Southern California, had announced over the summer that he was terminally ill.

    “Although I’m famous as a pessimist, I really haven’t been pessimistic,” he told the Times in July. “You know,(my writing has) more been a call to action. An attempt to elicit righteous anger against those whom we should be righteously angry against. But now, there is a certain sense of doom. This is not the time or history that my kids should inherit, you know?”

    As noted in Wiener’s tribute, Davis was “a 1960s person” whose background was not privileged, but working class and conservative. Raised in San Diego County, he was a onetime member of the military oriented Devil Pups youth program, radicalized by the civil rights movement. He volunteered for the Congress of Racial Equality, burned his draft card to protest the 1965 U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic, joined the Communist Party and became an organizer for the left-wing Students for a Democratic Society.

    “I was like Zelig in the events of the period,” Davis told The New Yorker in 2020. “I was at every demonstration and several riots, just there in the crowd, rank and file.”

    He was faulted for ideological bias and for various errors and fabrications — some acknowledged — but his dark takes on Los Angeles and broader subjects often proved justified. “City of Quartz,” published in 1990, condemned the race and class divides of Los Angeles and labeled the city a “carceral” society, prison-like and overseen by an oppressive police force. The police beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the riots following the 1992 acquittal of his attackers made his book seem like prophecy.

    Davis’ “Ecology of Fear” foresaw the growing catastrophe of wildfires in California and “The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu,” published in 2005, warned that a deadly pandemic was increasingly likely. During his New Yorker interview, Davis called capitalism unfit to handle public health and environmental disaster, but still believed a better world was possible.

    “This seems an age of catastrophe, but it’s also an age equipped, in an abstract sense, with all the tools it needs,” he said. “Utopia is available to us. If, like me, you lived through the civil-rights movement, the antiwar movement, you can never discard hope.”

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  • US sued over lack of protection plan for rare grouse

    US sued over lack of protection plan for rare grouse

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An environmental group is suing U.S. wildlife managers, saying they have failed to protect a rare grouse found in parts of the Midwest that include one of the country’s most prolific areas for oil and gas development.

    A lawsuit filed Tuesday by the Center for Biological Diversity says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is nearly five months late in releasing a final rule outlining protections for the lesser prairie chicken.

    Once listed as a threatened species, the prarie chicken’s habitat spans parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas — including a portion of the oil-rich Permian Basin that straddles the New Mexico-Texas state line.

    Environmentalists have been pushing to reinstate federal protections for years. They consider the species severely threatened, citing lost and fragmented habitat as the result of oil and gas development, livestock grazing, farming and the building of roads and power lines.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2021 proposed listing the southern population in New Mexico and the southern reaches of the Texas Panhandle as endangered and those birds in the northern part of the species’ range as threatened. The agency had a deadline of June 1.

    “The oil and gas industry has fought for decades against safeguards for the lesser prairie chicken, and the Fish and Wildlife Service is late issuing its final rule,” said Michael Robinson, a senior conservation advocate with the environment group. “The agency has slow-walked every step, and these imperiled birds keep losing more habitat.”

    The Fish and Wildlife Service on Tuesday cited its policy for not commenting on pending litigation.

    The species was once thought to number in the millions. Now, surveys show, the five-year average population across the entire range hovers around 30,000 individual birds.

    Landowners and the oil and gas industry say they have had success with voluntary conservation programs aimed at protecting habitat and boosting the bird’s numbers. The Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which oversees the conservation effort, has yet to report the results of the 2022 survey done earlier this year.

    With a listing under the Endangered Species Act, officials have said that landowners and oil companies already participating in the voluntary conservation programs wouldn’t be affected because they already are taking steps to protect habitat. However, a listing would prevent any activities that result in the loss or degradation of existing habitat.

    The species’ regulatory history dates to an initial petition for protection in 1995.

    A little smaller and lighter in color than the greater prairie chicken, the lesser prairie chicken is known for spring courtship rituals that include flamboyant dances by the males and a cacophony of clucking.

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  • German leader warns against ‘worldwide renaissance’ for coal

    German leader warns against ‘worldwide renaissance’ for coal

    BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday that Russia’s war in Ukraine mustn’t lead to a “worldwide renaissance” for coal — comments that come as Germany itself brings coal-fired power plants back online in an effort to prevent an energy crunch this winter.

    In a speech to parliament, Scholz highlighted his government’s efforts to counter the effects of Russia’s decision to cut off gas supplies to Germany. The government has in recent months approved reactivating several coal- and oil-fired power plants, and environmental activists warn that Germany risks defaulting on its climate goals by burning more fossil fuels.

    Scholz said five further plants that use lignite, a low-quality and high-emission type of coal, have gone back online in recent days “as a time-limited but necessary emergency measure.” The chancellor this week also decided to keep Germany’s last three nuclear power plants, which originally were supposed to be switched off at the end of the year, running until mid-April.

    “We continue to stand firmly by our climate targets,” Scholz told lawmakers.

    Officials from almost 200 countries will gather next month in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to discuss how to tackle global warming.

    Scholz vowed that Germany, which is moving to expand its use of renewable energy, will pass all the major legislation needed to fulfill its climate targets by the end of this year and that the European Union will stay on course. He called for a final agreement in the coming months on the EU’s proposed “Fit for 55” package to achieve the bloc’s goals of cutting emissions of the gases that cause global warming by 55% over this decade.

    “The Russian aggression and its consequences mustn’t lead to a worldwide renaissance of coal,” the chancellor said. “We will make clear offers so that developing and emerging countries also can embark resolutely on the path toward a climate-neutral energy sector.”

    “We will vigorously help the states that today already are suffering particularly from the consequences of climate change,” he added.

    Germany’s foreign minister said earlier this month that Berlin wants the huge economic damage resulting from global warming to be discussed at the climate talks in Egypt.

    Coal accounted for 31.4% of Germany’s electricity generation in this year’s first half, up from 27.1% a year earlier. Around 48.5% of the country’s electricity came from renewable sources, up from 43.8% the year before, while the proportions derived from nuclear power and gas declined to 6% and 11.7%, respectively.

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  • King Charles III decides not to attend climate summit

    King Charles III decides not to attend climate summit

    LONDON — King Charles III has decided not to attend the international climate change summit in Egypt next month, fueling speculation that the new monarch will have to rein in his environmental activism now that he has ascended the throne.

    The Sunday Times newspaper reported that the decision came after Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss objected to Charles attending the conference, known as COP27, when she met with the king last month at Buckingham Palace.

    While there was no official rebuttal, other British media quoted unidentified palace and government sources as saying that Charles made his decision after consultation with the prime minister and that any suggestion of disagreement was untrue.

    Under the rules that govern Britain’s constitutional monarchy, the king is barred from interfering in politics. By convention, all official overseas visits by members of the royal family are undertaken in accordance with advice from the government and a decision like this would have resulted from consultation and agreement.

    Before becoming king when Queen Elizabeth II died on Sept. 8, there had been speculation Charles would travel to the summit in the role he then held as Prince of Wales.

    Charles attended the previous climate summit, COP26, last year in Glasgow, Scotland, but his attendance at this year’s conference was never confirmed. COP27 is taking place Nov. 16-18 in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

    When he was Prince of Wales, Charles was accused of meddling in government affairs, including allegations that he inappropriately lobbied government ministers.

    But Charles is now king, and he has acknowledged that he will have less freedom to speak out on public issues as monarch than he did as the heir to the throne. At the same time, his advisers would be looking for the right time and place for Charles’ first overseas trip as sovereign.

    “My life will, of course, change as I take up my new responsibilities,’’ Charles said in a televised address after his mother’s death.

    “It will no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energies to the charities and issues for which I care so deeply. But I know this important work will go on in the trusted hands of others.”

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