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Tag: Environmental concerns

  • Advanced recycling: Plastic crisis solution or distraction?

    Advanced recycling: Plastic crisis solution or distraction?

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    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The plastics industry says there is a way to help solve the crisis of plastic waste plaguing the planet’s oceans, beaches and lands— recycle it, chemically.

    Chemical recycling typically uses heat or chemical solvents to break down plastics into liquid and gas to produce an oil-like mixture or basic chemicals. Industry leaders say that mixture can be made back into plastic pellets to make new products.

    “What we are trying to do is really create a circular economy for plastics because we think it is the most viable option for keeping plastic out of the environment,” said Joshua Baca, vice president of the plastics division at the American Chemistry Council, the industry trade association for American chemical companies.

    ExxonMobil, New Hope Energy, Nexus Circular, Eastman, Encina and other companies are planning to build large plastics recycling plants. Seven smaller facilities across the United States already recycle plastic into new plastic, according to the ACC. A handful of others convert hard-to-recycle used plastics into alternative transportation fuels for aviation, marine and auto uses.

    But environmental groups say advanced recycling is a distraction from real solutions like producing and using less plastic. They suspect the idea of recyclable plastics will enable the steep ramp up in plastic production to continue. And while the amount produced globally grows, recycling rates for plastic waste are abysmally low, especially in the United States.

    Plastic packaging, multi-layered films, bags, polystyrene foam and other hard-to-recycle plastic products are piling up in landfills and in the environment, or going to incinerators.

    Judith Enck, the founder and president of Beyond Plastics, says plastics recycling doesn’t work and never will. Chemical additives and colorants used to give plastic different properties mean that there are thousands of types, she said. That’s why they can’t be mixed together and recycled in the conventional, mechanical way. Nor is there much of a market for recycled plastic, because virgin plastic is cheap, she said.

    So what is more likely to happen than actual recycling, said Enck, a former regional administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is the industry will shift to burning plastics as waste or as fuel.

    Lee Bell, a policy advisor for the International Pollutants Elimination Network, thinks chemical recycling is a public relations exercise by the petrochemical industry. The purpose is to dissuade regulators from capping plastics production. Making plastic could become even more important to the fossil fuel industry as climate change puts pressure on their transportation fuels, Bell said.

    The industry has made roughly 11 billion metric tons of plastic since 1950, with half of that produced since 2006, according to industrial ecologist Roland Geyer. Global plastic production is expected to more than quadruple by 2050, according to the United Nations Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal in Norway.

    The international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says the share of plastic waste that is successfully recycled is projected to rise to 17% in 2060 from 9% in 2019 if no additional policies are enacted to restrain plastic demand and enhance recycling, but that wouldn’t begin to keep up with the projected growth in plastic waste. With more ambitious policies, the amount of plastic waste that is recycled could rise to 40% to 60%, according to OECD.

    Two groups working to reduce plastic pollution, the Last Beach Clean Up and Beyond Plastics, estimated that the U.S. rate for recycling plastic waste in 2021 was even lower — 5% to 6%, after China stopped accepting other countries’ waste in 2018.

    The U.S. national recycling strategy says no option, including chemical recycling, should be ruled out. The way to think of these new plants, the industry says, is as manufacturing plants. They should be legally defined that way, and not as waste management. About 20 states have adopted laws in the past five years consistent with that wish. Opponents say it’s a way to skirt the more stringent environmental regulations that apply to waste management facilities.

    EXISTING PLANTS

    The U.S. facilities currently recycling plastic into new plastic are small — the largest is a 60-ton-per-day plant in Akron, Ohio, Alterra Energy, according to the ACC.

    Alterra Energy says it takes in the hard-to-recycle plastics, like flexible pouches, multi-layered films and rigid plastics from automobiles — everything except plastic water bottles since those are recycled mechanically, or plastics marked with a “3” since they contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.

    “Our mission is to solve plastic pollution,” said Jeremy DeBenedictis, company president. “That is not just a tag line. We all truly want to solve plastic pollution.”

    The Ohio facility typically takes in 40 tons to 50 tons per day, heating and liquifying the plastic to turn it back into an oil or hydrocarbon liquid, about 10,000 gallons to 12,000 gallons daily. About 75% of what comes into the facility can be liquified like that. Another 15% is turned into a synthetic natural gas to heat the process, while the remainder — paper, metals, dyes, inks and colorants — exit the reactor as a byproduct, or carbon char, DeBenedictis said. The char is disposed of as nonhazardous waste, though in the future some hope to sell it to the asphalt industry.

    The process doesn’t involve oxygen so there’s no combustion or incineration of plastics, DeBenedictis said, and their product is trucked as a synthetic oil to petrochemical companies, essentially the “building blocks on a molecular level for new plastic production.”

    The materials they take in, that haven’t been able to be recycled until now, should not be sent to landfills, dumped in the ocean or incinerated, DeBenedictis said.

    “That next level has to be a new technology, what you call chemical recycling or advanced recycling. That’s the next frontier,” he said.

    “Let’s not kid ourselves here. This is the right time to do it,” added company CEO Fred Schmuck. “There is absolutely no way we can meet our climate goals without addressing plastic waste.”

    DeBenedictis said he’s licensing the technology to try to grow the industry because that’s the “best way to make the quickest impact to the world.” A Finnish oil and gas company, Neste, is currently working to commercialize Alterra’s technology in Europe.

    The main chemical recycling technologies use pyrolysis, gasification or depolymerization. Neil Tangri, the science and policy director at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, is skeptical. He says he has been hearing that pyrolysis is going to change everything since the 1990s, but it hasn’t happened. Instead, plastic production keeps climbing.

    GAIA views chemical recycling as a false solution that will facilitate greater production of virgin plastic — a high-energy process with high-carbon emissions that releases hazardous air pollutants, Tangri said. Instead, GAIA wants plastic production to be dramatically scaled back and only recyclable plastics to be produced.

    “Nobody needs more plastic,” Tangri said. “We keep trying to solve these production problems with recycling when really we need to change how much we make and what we make. That’s where the solution lies.”

    EQUITY ISSUES IN SITING PLANTS

    In Rhode Island, state lawmakers considered a bill this year to exempt such facilities from solid waste licensing requirements. It was vigorously opposed by environmental activists and residents near the port of Providence who feared it would lead to a new plant in their neighborhood. State environmental officials sided with them.

    Monica Huertas, executive director of The People’s Port Authority, helped lead the opposition. The neighborhood is already overburdened by industry, she said, so much so that she sometimes has asthma attacks after walking around.

    Dwayne Keys said it’s unfair that he and his neighbors always have to be on guard for proposals like these, unlike residents in some of the state’s wealthy, white neighborhoods. The port area has enough environmental hazards that residents don’t benefit from economically, he added. Keys calls it environmental racism.

    “The assessment is, we’re the path of least resistance,” he said. “Not that there’s no resistance, but the least. We’re a coalition of individuals volunteering our time. We don’t have wealth or access to resources or the legal means, as opposed to our white counterparts in higher income, higher net worth communities.”

    The chemistry council’s Baca said the facilities operate at the highest standards, the industry believes everyone deserves clear air and water, and he would invite any detractors to one of the facilities so they can see that firsthand.

    U.S. plastics producers have said they will recycle or recover all plastic packaging used in the United States by 2040, and have already announced more than $7 billion in investments in both mechanical and chemical recycling.

    “I think we are on the cusp of a sustainability revolution where circularity will be the centerpiece of that,” Baca said. “And innovative technologies like advanced recycling will be what makes this possible.”

    Kate O’Neill wrote the book on waste, called “Waste.” A professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley, she has thought a lot about whether chemical recycling should be part of the solution to the plastic crisis. She said she has concluded yes, even though she knows saying so would “piss off the environmentalists.”

    “With some of these big problems,” she said, “we can’t rule anything out.”

    ———

    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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  • Advanced recycling: Plastic crisis solution or distraction?

    Advanced recycling: Plastic crisis solution or distraction?

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    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The plastics industry says there is a way to help solve the crisis of plastic waste plaguing the planet’s oceans, beaches and lands— recycle it, chemically.

    Chemical recycling typically uses heat or chemical solvents to break down plastics into liquid and gas to produce an oil-like mixture or basic chemicals. Industry leaders say that mixture can be made back into plastic pellets to make new products.

    “What we are trying to do is really create a circular economy for plastics because we think it is the most viable option for keeping plastic out of the environment,” said Joshua Baca, vice president of the plastics division at the American Chemistry Council, the industry trade association for American chemical companies.

    ExxonMobil, New Hope Energy, Nexus Circular, Eastman, Encina and other companies are planning to build large plastics recycling plants. Seven smaller facilities across the United States already recycle plastic into new plastic, according to the ACC. A handful of others convert hard-to-recycle used plastics into alternative transportation fuels for aviation, marine and auto uses.

    But environmental groups say advanced recycling is a distraction from real solutions like producing and using less plastic. They suspect the idea of recyclable plastics will enable the steep ramp up in plastic production to continue. And while the amount produced globally grows, recycling rates for plastic waste are abysmally low, especially in the United States.

    Plastic packaging, multi-layered films, bags, polystyrene foam and other hard-to-recycle plastic products are piling up in landfills and in the environment, or going to incinerators.

    Judith Enck, the founder and president of Beyond Plastics, says plastics recycling doesn’t work and never will. Chemical additives and colorants used to give plastic different properties mean that there are thousands of types, she said. That’s why they can’t be mixed together and recycled in the conventional, mechanical way. Nor is there much of a market for recycled plastic, because virgin plastic is cheap, she said.

    So what is more likely to happen than actual recycling, said Enck, a former regional administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is the industry will shift to burning plastics as waste or as fuel.

    Lee Bell, a policy advisor for the International Pollutants Elimination Network, thinks chemical recycling is a public relations exercise by the petrochemical industry. The purpose is to dissuade regulators from capping plastics production. Making plastic could become even more important to the fossil fuel industry as climate change puts pressure on their transportation fuels, Bell said.

    The industry has made roughly 11 billion metric tons of plastic since 1950, with half of that produced since 2006, according to industrial ecologist Roland Geyer. Global plastic production is expected to more than quadruple by 2050, according to the United Nations Environment Programme and GRID-Arendal in Norway.

    The international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says the share of plastic waste that is successfully recycled is projected to rise to 17% in 2060 from 9% in 2019 if no additional policies are enacted to restrain plastic demand and enhance recycling, but that wouldn’t begin to keep up with the projected growth in plastic waste. With more ambitious policies, the amount of plastic waste that is recycled could rise to 40% to 60%, according to OECD.

    Two groups working to reduce plastic pollution, the Last Beach Clean Up and Beyond Plastics, estimated that the U.S. rate for recycling plastic waste in 2021 was even lower — 5% to 6%, after China stopped accepting other countries’ waste in 2018.

    The U.S. national recycling strategy says no option, including chemical recycling, should be ruled out. The way to think of these new plants, the industry says, is as manufacturing plants. They should be legally defined that way, and not as waste management. About 20 states have adopted laws in the past five years consistent with that wish. Opponents say it’s a way to skirt the more stringent environmental regulations that apply to waste management facilities.

    EXISTING PLANTS

    The U.S. facilities currently recycling plastic into new plastic are small — the largest is a 60-ton-per-day plant in Akron, Ohio, Alterra Energy, according to the ACC.

    Alterra Energy says it takes in the hard-to-recycle plastics, like flexible pouches, multi-layered films and rigid plastics from automobiles — everything except plastic water bottles since those are recycled mechanically, or plastics marked with a “3” since they contain polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.

    “Our mission is to solve plastic pollution,” said Jeremy DeBenedictis, company president. “That is not just a tag line. We all truly want to solve plastic pollution.”

    The Ohio facility typically takes in 40 tons to 50 tons per day, heating and liquifying the plastic to turn it back into an oil or hydrocarbon liquid, about 10,000 gallons to 12,000 gallons daily. About 75% of what comes into the facility can be liquified like that. Another 15% is turned into a synthetic natural gas to heat the process, while the remainder — paper, metals, dyes, inks and colorants — exit the reactor as a byproduct, or carbon char, DeBenedictis said. The char is disposed of as nonhazardous waste, though in the future some hope to sell it to the asphalt industry.

    The process doesn’t involve oxygen so there’s no combustion or incineration of plastics, DeBenedictis said, and their product is trucked as a synthetic oil to petrochemical companies, essentially the “building blocks on a molecular level for new plastic production.”

    The materials they take in, that haven’t been able to be recycled until now, should not be sent to landfills, dumped in the ocean or incinerated, DeBenedictis said.

    “That next level has to be a new technology, what you call chemical recycling or advanced recycling. That’s the next frontier,” he said.

    “Let’s not kid ourselves here. This is the right time to do it,” added company CEO Fred Schmuck. “There is absolutely no way we can meet our climate goals without addressing plastic waste.”

    DeBenedictis said he’s licensing the technology to try to grow the industry because that’s the “best way to make the quickest impact to the world.” A Finnish oil and gas company, Neste, is currently working to commercialize Alterra’s technology in Europe.

    The main chemical recycling technologies use pyrolysis, gasification or depolymerization. Neil Tangri, the science and policy director at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, is skeptical. He says he has been hearing that pyrolysis is going to change everything since the 1990s, but it hasn’t happened. Instead, plastic production keeps climbing.

    GAIA views chemical recycling as a false solution that will facilitate greater production of virgin plastic — a high-energy process with high-carbon emissions that releases hazardous air pollutants, Tangri said. Instead, GAIA wants plastic production to be dramatically scaled back and only recyclable plastics to be produced.

    “Nobody needs more plastic,” Tangri said. “We keep trying to solve these production problems with recycling when really we need to change how much we make and what we make. That’s where the solution lies.”

    EQUITY ISSUES IN CITING PLANTS

    In Rhode Island, state lawmakers considered a bill this year to exempt such facilities from solid waste licensing requirements. It was vigorously opposed by environmental activists and residents near the port of Providence who feared it would lead to a new plant in their neighborhood. State environmental officials sided with them.

    Monica Huertas, executive director of The People’s Port Authority, helped lead the opposition. The neighborhood is already overburdened by industry, she said, so much so that she sometimes has asthma attacks after walking around.

    Dwayne Keys said it’s unfair that he and his neighbors always have to be on guard for proposals like these, unlike residents in some of the state’s wealthy, white neighborhoods. The port area has enough environmental hazards that residents don’t benefit from economically, he added. Keys calls it environmental racism.

    “The assessment is, we’re the path of least resistance,” he said. “Not that there’s no resistance, but the least. We’re a coalition of individuals volunteering our time. We don’t have wealth or access to resources or the legal means, as opposed to our white counterparts in higher income, higher net worth communities.”

    The chemistry council’s Baca said the facilities operate at the highest standards, the industry believes everyone deserves clear air and water, and he would invite any detractors to one of the facilities so they can see that firsthand.

    U.S. plastics producers have said they will recycle or recover all plastic packaging used in the United States by 2040, and have already announced more than $7 billion in investments in both mechanical and chemical recycling.

    “I think we are on the cusp of a sustainability revolution where circularity will be the centerpiece of that,” Baca said. “And innovative technologies like advanced recycling will be what makes this possible.”

    Kate O’Neill wrote the book on waste, called “Waste.” A professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at the University of California, Berkeley, she has thought a lot about whether chemical recycling should be part of the solution to the plastic crisis. She said she has concluded yes, even though she knows saying so would “piss off the environmentalists.”

    “With some of these big problems,” she said, “we can’t rule anything out.”

    ———

    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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  • Study: Cancer-causing gas leaking from CA stoves, pipes

    Study: Cancer-causing gas leaking from CA stoves, pipes

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    Gas stoves in California homes are leaking cancer-causing benzene, researchers found in a new study published on Thursday, though they say more research is needed to understand how many homes have leaks.

    In the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology on Thursday, researchers also estimated that over 4 tons of benzene per year are being leaked into the atmosphere from outdoor pipes that deliver the gas to buildings around California — the equivalent to the benzene emissions from nearly 60,000 vehicles. And those emissions are unaccounted for by the state.

    The researchers collected samples of gas from 159 homes in different regions of California and measured to see what types of gases were being emitted into homes when stoves were off. They found that all of the samples they tested had hazardous air pollutants, like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX), all of which can have adverse health effects in humans with chronic exposure or acute exposure in larger amounts.

    Of most concern to the researchers was benzene, a known carcinogen that can lead to leukemia and other cancers and blood disorders, according to the National Cancer Institute.

    The finding could have major implications for indoor and outdoor air quality in California, which has the second highest level of residential natural gas use in the United States.

    “What our science shows is that people in California are exposed to potentially hazardous levels of benzene from the gas that is piped into their homes,” said Drew Michanowicz, a study co-author and senior scientist at PSE Healthy Energy, an energy research and policy institute. “We hope that policymakers will consider this data when they are making policy to ensure current and future policies are health-protective in light of this new research.”

    Homes in almost every region in the study — Greater Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento and Fresno — had benzene levels that far exceed the limit determined to be safe by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment. But the region with the highest benzene levels by far was the North San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

    This finding in particular didn’t surprise residents and health care workers in the region who spoke to The Associated Press about the study. That’s because many of them experienced the largest-known natural gas leak in the nation in Aliso Canyon in 2015.

    Back then, 100,000 tons of methane and other gases, including benzene, leaked from a failed well operated by Southern California Gas Co. It took nearly four months to get the leak under control and resulted in headaches, nausea and nose bleeds.

    Dr. Jeffrey Nordella was a physician at an urgent care in the region during this time and remembers being puzzled by the variety of symptoms patients were experiencing. “I didn’t have much to offer them,” except to help them try to detox from the exposures, he said.

    That was an acute exposure of a large amount of benzene, which is different from chronic exposure to smaller amounts, but “remember what the World Health Organization said: there’s no safe level of benzene,” he said.

    Kyoko Hibino was one of the residents exposed to toxic air pollution as a result of the Aliso Canyon gas leak. After the leak, she started having a persistent cough and nosebleeds and eventually was diagnosed with breast cancer, which has also been linked to benzene exposure. Her cats also started having nosebleeds and one recently passed away from leukemia.

    “I’d say let’s take this study really seriously and understand how bad (benzene exposure) is,” she said.

    ———

    Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • New Zealand farmers hit streets to protest cow-burp tax plan

    New Zealand farmers hit streets to protest cow-burp tax plan

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    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Farmers across New Zealand took to the streets on their tractors Thursday to protest government plans to tax cow burps and other greenhouse gas emissions, although the rallies were smaller than many had expected.

    Lobby group Groundswell New Zealand helped organize more than 50 protests in towns and cities across the country, the biggest involving a few dozen vehicles.

    Last week, the government proposed a new farm levy as part of a plan to tackle climate change. The government said it would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products.

    Because farming is so big in New Zealand — there are 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep, compared to just 5 million people — about half of all greenhouse gas emissions come from farms. Methane from burping cattle makes a particularly big contribution.

    But some farmers argue the proposed tax would actually increase global greenhouse gas emissions by shifting farming to countries less efficient at making food.

    At the protest in Wellington, farmer Dave McCurdy said he was disappointed in the small turnout, but said most farmers were working hard on their farms during a spell of good spring weather at a particularly busy time of year.

    He said farmers were good environmental stewards.

    “It’s our life, our family’s lives,” he said. “We’re not out there to wreck it, we wouldn’t make any money. We love our farms. That’s what annoys us. We’re painted at these bad guys, but a lot of farmers have spent generations looking after that land.”

    He said the proposed tax didn’t take proper account of all the trees and brush he and other farmers had planted, which helped trap carbon and offset emissions. He said if the proposed tax and herd reductions went ahead, it would be ruinous to many farmers.

    “I’m out,” he said. “Waste of time.”

    Farming remains vital to New Zealand’s economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nation’s largest export earner.

    McCurdy said farmers had almost singlehandedly kept the economy afloat during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and now that the threat had passed and a recession was looming, the government was coming after them.

    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has pledged the nation will become carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes reducing methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050.

    The government had worked with farmers and other groups to try to come up with an emissions plan they could all live with. But many farmers have been incensed by the government’s final proposal, while environmentalists have said it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

    Farmer Matt Swansson said he’d “had a gutsful” of the government and would consider refusing to pay the new tax.

    He said on beautiful evenings on his farm, he thinks he has the best job in the world.

    “But when it’s rain, drizzle, and you get home and listen to the news,” Swansson said. “Why do you bother?”

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  • Sponsorships questioned by leading Australian athletes

    Sponsorships questioned by leading Australian athletes

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    BRISBANE, Australia — Athletes in two of Australia’s most popular sports — cricket and netball — are criticizing millions of dollars of sponsorship money from mining and energy companies.

    Much of it involves environmental concerns. In another case of athletes speaking out, an Indigenous netball player has questioned sponsorship by a mining company because of racist remarks in the 1980s by its founder about Aboriginal people in Australia.

    Athletes have openly called out injustices and sportswashing by some governments and regimes.

    This week national cricket captain Pat Cummins had no hesitation in calling for more climate-conscious corporate partners for his sport. A recent pay agreement between the players’ union and Cricket Australia allows players to decline to endorse certain brands on “reasonable personal or reasonable professional grounds.”

    “Not just us players, but every organization has a responsibility to do what is right for the sport but also what they think is the right thing for the organization,” Cummins said. “I hope society when it moves forward, it’s a balance where you make decisions about who you’re going to welcome into the cricket family.”

    Cummins had previously raised concerns with CA’s chief executive Nick Hockley over the fact that Cricket Australia sponsor Alinta Energy’s parent company, Pioneer Sail Holdings, has been listed as one of Australia’s highest carbon emitters.

    Cricket Australia acknowledged that it had agreed to end a deal worth almost 40 million Australian dollars ($25 million), but said it was because of “a change in its brand strategy” by the energy company.

    “CA confirms that at no point did any conversation between men’s team captain Pat Cummins and CA CEO Nick Hockley influence Alinta’s decision to finish its sponsorship with Cricket Australia in June 2023,” Cricket Australia said in a statement.

    The issue was five years in the making. A clause was added to the current memorandum of understanding between the players and Cricket Australia, signed in 2017, after objections first raised by Usman Khawaja and Fawad Ahmed almost a decade ago about wearing uniforms emblazoned with alcohol logos on the basis of their Muslim faith. At the center of the controversy was a beer company logo on a uniform when Fawad made his debut for Australia.

    “I think it’s always been a balance,” Cummins told Australian media when he confirmed he wouldn’t be appearing in future TV advertising for the energy company. “We’ve seen certain players make decisions based on religion, or maybe certain foods they eat, they won’t partner with specific partners, but we really thank all our partners for everything they do.”

    Netball is the most popular team sport for women and girls across Australia, played on a similar court to basketball but with seven players on each team and more restrictive rules.

    The sport’s national governing body is working to reach a compromise with Indigenous player Donnell Wallam after re-affirming its sponsorship deal with mining company Hancock Prospecting.

    Wallam, a Noongar woman from Western Australia state who now plays for the Queensland-based Firebirds in the top-flight national league, raised concerns about Netball Australia’s four-year, 15 million Australian dollar ($9.5 million) sponsorship with billionaire Gina Rinehart’s company.

    Wallam took issue with Hancock Prospecting’s record on Indigenous matters, which date to Rinehart’s late father Lang Hancock. He proposed in a 1984 television interview that some Indigenous people be given contaminated water so they could be sterilized and “breed themselves out.”

    Wallam, who later this month is expected to become the first Indigenous player to represent the Australian Diamonds in more than 20 years, was reluctant to wear the new sponsor’s logo. She was considering seeking an exemption, as other athletes have done when a sponsor doesn’t align with their beliefs or religion, however the issue raised national attention when her teammates opted to stand with her.

    Both Netball Australia and national team captain Liz Watson have voiced their support for Hancock Prospecting, with the deal securing the future of the sports organization which sustained heavy losses over two years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “As players we do know that Hancock is such a great investment for our program,” Watson told Australian Associated Press.

    But Watson said they also wanted to show support for their teammate.

    “We’re supporting her cultural sensitivities around the program, around the partnership, and we want her to be herself and feel comfortable and strong,” Watson said.

    Newly-elected Independent senator and former Australian rugby captain David Pocock, who has partnered with Cummins on climate change initiatives, backed the cricket captain’s stance.

    “Sport is already feeling the impact of climate change with extreme heat, bushfire smoke and flooding leading to cancellations and delays of matches as well as player and spectator welfare issues,” Pocock said.

    And the movement is growing. A group of high-profile fans from the Fremantle Dockers Australian Football League team as well as former Fremantle star Dale Kickett have called on the club to dump oil and gas giant Woodside Energy as its major sponsor.

    In an open letter to the Dockers board and president Dale Alcock, the signatories said it was no longer appropriate for a fossil fuel company to sponsor the club as the world fought climate change.

    “We should not allow our club’s good name to be used by a corporation to enhance its reputation when its core activities are so clearly threatening our planet,” they said.

    ———

    More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Australia and Singapore strike agreement to achieve net-zero

    Australia and Singapore strike agreement to achieve net-zero

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    CANBERRA, Australia — Australian and Singaporean leaders announced Tuesday what they described as a world-first agreement to cooperate in transitioning their economies to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

    Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese outlined their so-called Green Economy Agreement between the two countries after an annual meeting in the Australian Parliament House.

    The agreement has 17 components that cover facilitating trade and investment in green services, harmonizing standards and building green growth sectors through collaboration between business.

    Australia has committed to reducing its emissions to net-zero by 2050 and Singapore is considering adopting the same target.

    Albanese described Singapore as “one of the most innovative economies in the world,” while Australia had the potential to become a “renewable energy superpower” due to its vast open spaces and relatively small population.

    The agreement “will support clean energy innovation, unlock business opportunities and create jobs, and help deliver our mission’s targets while positioning Australia as a renewable energy superpower,” Albanese said.

    Lee foreshadowed further cooperation in cross-border electricity trade and “sustainable aviation” through what he described as the “world’s first such agreement.”

    ”These are all areas which are of interest to Singapore and to Singapore businesses and we hope with a Singapore-Australia GEA they’ll be able to move forward,” Lee said.

    “But we also hope with this GEA will encourage other countries to look at what we have been able to do and to ask whether some of this may not make sense to them to do with Singapore or to do with each other,” Lee added.

    Singapore is already planning to use solar power from northern Australia transmitted by a 4,200-kilometer (2,600-mile) submarine cable.

    Singaporean company Sun Cable plans to start construction in 2024 of the 30 billion Australian dollar ($19 billion) Australia-Asia PowerLink project that will include 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of solar panels near the northern Australian city of Darwin.

    Albanese described the export of Australian solar power to Singapore as an “ultimate win-win.”

    “If this project can be made to work — and I believe it can be — you will see the world’s largest solar farm, you will see the export of energy across distances … (and) the production of many jobs here in Australia, including manufacturing jobs,” Albanese said.

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  • International climate change bodies win humanity award

    International climate change bodies win humanity award

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    LISBON, Portugal — A prize worth 1 million euros ($970,000) is being awarded to two intergovernmental bodies for their work on climate change.

    Organizers of the annual Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity announced Thursday that this year’s winners are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

    Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is president of the prize’s jury, said the award would help keep the issue of climate change in the public mind even as Russia’s war in Ukraine and its consequences compete for attention.

    The IPCC is a U.N. body which since 1998 has encouraged scientific research and supported government efforts to combat climate change. It shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

    The IPBES is an independent organization established in 2012 to smooth the transfer of information between scientists and governments.

    The prize was created in 2020 by the Lisbon, Portugal-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to recognize important contributions toward mitigating and adapting to climate change.

    It has previously honored climate activist Greta Thunberg.

    ———

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

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  • New Zealand proposes taxing cow burps, angering farmers

    New Zealand proposes taxing cow burps, angering farmers

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    WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change.

    The government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products.

    But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry’s main lobby group, said the plan would “rip the guts out of small town New Zealand” and see farms replaced with trees.

    Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldn’t decrease food production.

    “Our plan was to keep farmers farming,” Hoggard said. Instead, he said farmers would be selling their farms “so fast you won’t even hear the dogs barking on the back of the ute (pickup truck) as they drive off.”

    Opposition lawmakers from the conservative ACT Party said the plan would actually increase worldwide emissions by moving farming to other countries that were less efficient at making food.

    New Zealand’s farming industry is vital to its economy. Dairy products, including those used to make infant formula in China, are the nation’s largest export earner.

    There are just 5 million people in New Zealand but some 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep.

    The outsized industry has made New Zealand unusual in that about half of its greenhouse gas emissions come from farms. Farm animals produce gasses that warm the planet, particularly methane from cattle burping and nitrous oxide from their urine.

    The government has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and make the country carbon neutral by 2050. Part of that plan includes a pledge that it will reduce methane emissions from farm animals by 10% by 2030 and by up to 47% by 2050.

    Under the government’s proposed plan, farmers would start to pay for emissions in 2025, with the pricing yet to be finalized.

    Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said all the money collected from the proposed farm levy would be put back into the industry to fund new technology, research and incentive payments for farmers.

    “New Zealand’s farmers are set to be the first in the world to reduce agricultural emissions, positioning our biggest export market for the competitive advantage that brings in a world increasingly discerning about the provenance of their food,” Ardern said.

    Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said it was an exciting opportunity for New Zealand and its farmers.

    “Farmers are already experiencing the impact of climate change with more regular drought and flooding,” O’Connor said. “Taking the lead on agricultural emissions is both good for the environment and our economy.”

    The liberal Labour government’s proposal harks back to a similar but unsuccessful proposal made by a previous Labour government in 2003 to tax farm animals for their methane emissions.

    Farmers back then also vehemently opposed the idea, and political opponents ridiculed it as a “fart tax” — although a “burp tax” would have been more technically accurate as most of the methane emissions come from belching. The government eventually abandoned the plan.

    According to opinion polls, Ardern’s Labour Party has slipped in popularity and fallen behind the main opposition National Party since Ardern won a second term in 2020 in a landslide victory of historic proportions.

    If Ardern’s government can’t find agreement on the proposal with farmers, who have considerable political sway in New Zealand, it’s likely to make it more difficult for Ardern to win reelection next year when the nation goes back to the polls.

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  • Germany wants climate losses issue on agenda at UN talks

    Germany wants climate losses issue on agenda at UN talks

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    BERLIN — Germany wants the question of loss and damage due to global warming to be discussed at this year’s United Nations climate talks, Germany’s foreign minister said Friday.

    Vulnerable countries have long demanded that big polluters be held accountable for the effects that their greenhouse gas emissions are having around the world, including the tangible destruction caused by extreme weather and sea level rise resulting from rising global temperatures.

    But rich nations that account for the majority of planet-warming emissions since the start of the industrial era have largely opposed efforts to formally debate the ‘loss and damage’ issue for fear they might have to pay climate reparations.

    Last year’s U.N. climate talks in Glasgow failed to reach agreement on establishing a special fund for loss and damage.

    Speaking after a meeting with her counterpart from Pakistan, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said the recent devastating floods in the South Asian nation had shown “what dramatic consequences the climate crisis is having in all regions.”

    “As one of the hardest-hit countries worldwide, Pakistan is paying a high price for global CO2 emissions,” Baerbock, a member of the environmentalist Greens party, told reporters in Berlin.

    “That’s why Germany will work toward a fair sharing of the costs at the COP27 in Egypt, putting the question of climate adaptation, but in particular also the question of loss and damage, on the agenda,” she said, referring to the U.N. climate talks next month in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

    Germany is also giving Pakistan a further 10 million euros in flood aid, taking its total commitment to 60 million euros, Baerbock said.

    Pakistan’s foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, said the “biblical floods” had affected 33 million people and at one point a third of the country was under water. Many roads, hospitals and farms were destroyed.

    U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday that Pakistan was “on the verge of a public health disaster” due to the risk of diseases such as cholera, malaria and dengue fever, while malnutrition also was spiking.

    ———

    Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

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  • Munich Re to stop its backing for new oil, gas fields

    Munich Re to stop its backing for new oil, gas fields

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    Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, says it will stop backing new oil and gas fields beginning next April

    BERLIN — Munich Re, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies, said Thursday that it will stop backing new oil and gas fields beginning next April.

    The company said it will also no longer invest in or insure new oil pipelines and power plants that weren’t already under construction by Dec. 31, 2022.

    Munich Re said the moves were part of its effort to reduce the harmful impact its business has on the environment. The burning of oil and gas is one of the main sources of greenhouses gases fueling climate change.

    Munich Re provides so-called reinsurance contracts that help other insurers spread risks. It also invests the insurance premiums it receives from customers and third-party assets, making it a major institutional investor.

    ———

    Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

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  • Climate change made summer drought 20 times more likely

    Climate change made summer drought 20 times more likely

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    Drought that stretched across three continents this summer — drying out large parts of Europe, the United States and China — was made 20 times more likely by climate change, according to a new study.

    Drought dried up major rivers, destroyed crops, sparked wildfire, threatened aquatic species and led to water restrictions in Europe. It struck places already plagued by drying in the U.S., like the West, but also places where drought is more rare, like the Northeast. China also just had its driest summer in 60 years, leaving its famous Yangtze river half its normal width.

    Researchers from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists from around the world who study the link between extreme weather and climate change, say this type of drought would only happen once every 400 years across the Northern Hemisphere if not for human-caused climate change. Now they expect these conditions to repeat every 20 years, given how much the climate has warmed.

    Ecological disasters like the widespread drought and then massive flooding in Pakistan, are the “fingerprints of climate change,” Maarten van Aalst, a climate scientist at Columbia University and study co-author, said.

    “The impacts are very clear to people and are hitting hard,” he said, “not just in poor countries, like the flooding Pakistan …. but also in some of the richest parts of the world, like western central Europe.”

    To figure out the influence of climate change on drying in the Northern Hemisphere, scientists analyzed weather data, computer simulations and soil moisture throughout the regions, excluding tropical areas. They found that climate change made dry soil conditions much more likely over the last several months.

    This analysis was done using the warming the climate has already experienced so far, 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), but climate scientists have warned the climate will get warmer, and the authors of the study accounted for that.

    With an additional 0.8 degrees C degrees warming, this type of drought will happen once every 10 years in western Central Europe and every year throughout the Northern Hemisphere, said Dominik Schumacher, a climate scientist at ETH Zurich, a university in Switzerland.

    “We’re seeing these compounding and cascading effect across sectors and across regions,” van Aalst said. “One way to reduce those impacts (is) to reduce emissions.”

    ———

    Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • ‘Forever chemicals’ in deer, fish challenge hunters, tourism

    ‘Forever chemicals’ in deer, fish challenge hunters, tourism

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    PORTLAND, Maine — Wildlife agencies in the U.S. are finding elevated levels of a class of toxic chemicals in game animals such as deer — and that’s prompting health advisories in some places where hunting and fishing are ways of life and key pieces of the economy.

    Authorities have detected the high levels of PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in deer in several states, including Michigan and Maine, where legions of hunters seek to bag a buck every fall. Sometimes called “forever chemicals” for their persistence in the environment, PFAS are industrial compounds used in numerous products, such as nonstick cookware and clothing.

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency launched an effort last year to limit pollution from the chemicals, which are linked to health problems including cancer and low birth weight.

    But discovery of the chemicals in wild animals hunted for sport and food represents a new challenge that some states have started to confront by issuing “do not eat” advisories for deer and fish and expanding testing for PFAS in them.

    “The fact there is an additional threat to the wildlife — the game that people are going out to hunt and fish — is a threat to those industries, and how people think about hunting and fishing,” said Jennifer Hill, associate director of the Great Lakes Regional Center for the National Wildlife Federation.

    PFAS chemicals are an increasing focus of public health and environmental agencies, in part because they don’t degrade or do so slowly in the environment and can remain in a person’s bloodstream for life.

    The chemicals get into the environment through production of consumer goods and waste. T hey also have been used in firefighting foam and in agriculture. PFAS-tainted sewage sludge has long been applied to fields as fertilizer and compost.

    In Maine, where the chemicals were detected in well water at hundreds of times the federal health advisory level, legislators passed a law in 2021 requiring manufacturers to report their use of the chemicals and to phase them out by 2030. Environmental health advocates have said Maine’s law could be a model for other states, some working on their own PFAS legislation.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a bill in September that bans the chemicals from cosmetics sold in the state. And more than 20 states have proposed or adopted limits for PFAS in drinking water, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

    More testing will likely find the chemicals are present in other game animals besides deer, such as wild turkeys and fish, said David Trahan, executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, a hunting and outdoors advocacy group.

    The discovery could have a negative impact on outdoor tourism in the short term, Trahan said. “If people are unwilling to hunt and fish, how are we going to manage those species?” he said. “You’re getting it in your water, you’re getting it in your food, you’re getting it in wild game.”

    Maine was one of the first states to detect PFAS in deer. The state issued a “do not eat” advisory last year for deer harvested in the Fairfield area, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north of Portland, after several of the animals tested positive for elevated levels.

    The state is now expanding the testing to more animals across a wider area, said Nate Webb, wildlife division director at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. “Lab capacity has been challenging,” he said, “but I suspect there will be more facilities coming online to help ease that burden — in Maine and elsewhere in the country.”

    Wisconsin has tested deer, ducks and geese for PFAS, and as a result issued a “do not eat” advisory for deer liver around Marinette, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) north of Green Bay. The state also asked fishermen to reduce consumption of Lake Superior’s popular rainbow smelt to one meal per month.

    Some chemicals, including PFAS, can accumulate in the liver over time because the organ filters the chemicals from the blood, Wisconsin’s natural resources department told hunters. New Hampshire authorities have also issued an advisory to avoid consuming deer liver.

    Michigan was the first state to assess PFAS in deer, said Tammy Newcomb, senior executive assistant director for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

    The state issued its first “do not eat” advisory in 2018 for deer taken in and near Oscoda Township. Michigan has since issued an advisory against eating organs, such as liver and kidneys, from deer, fish or any other wild game anywhere in the state. It has also studied waterfowl throughout the state in areas of PFAS surface water contamination.

    The state’s expanded testing also has proven beneficial because it helped authorities find out which areas don’t have a PFAS problem, Newcomb said.

    “People like to throw up their arms and say we can’t do anything about it. I like to point to our results and say that’s not true,” Newcomb said. “Finding PFAS as a contaminant of concern has been the exception and not the rule.”

    The chemical has also been found in shellfish that are collected recreationally and commercially. Scientists from the Florida International University Institute of Environment sampled more than 150 oysters from around the state and detected PFAS in every one, according to their study in August. Natalia Soares Quinete, an assistant professor in the institute’s chemistry and biochemistry department, described the chemicals as “a long-term poison” that jeopardizes human health.

    Dr. Leo Trasande, a professor of pediatrics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine who has studied PFAS, said the best way to avoid negative health effects is reducing exposure. But, Trasande said that’s difficult to do because the chemicals are so commonplace and long-lasting in the environment.

    “If you’re seeing it in humans, you’re likely going to see the effects in animals,” he said.

    Wildlife authorities have tried to inform hunters of the presence of PFAS in deer with posted signs in hunting areas as well as advisories on social media and the internet. One such sign, in Michigan, told hunters that high amounts of PFAS “may be found in deer and could be harmful to your health.”

    Kip Adams, chief conservation officer for the National Deer Association, said the discovery of PFAS in states like Maine and Michigan is very concerning to hunters.

    “With the amount of venison my family eats, I can’t imagine not being able to do that,” Adams said. “To this point, everything we’ve done has been about sharing information and making sure people are aware of it.”

    ———

    Follow Patrick Whittle on Twitter: @pxwhittle

    ———

    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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  • King Charles III decides not to attend climate summit

    King Charles III decides not to attend climate summit

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    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.”

    ———

    Follow all AP stories on climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

    ———

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  • Ruptured oil pipeline off California approved for repairs

    Ruptured oil pipeline off California approved for repairs

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    LOS ANGELES — A Texas oil company was granted permission to repair an underwater pipeline that ruptured off the coast of Southern California a year ago, spilled tens of thousands of gallons of crude, and forced beaches and fisheries to close.

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the approval Friday to Amplify Energy Corp., clearing the way to rebuild the aging pipeline that burst months after it was apparently weakened when it was snagged by the anchors of ships adrift in a storm.

    The Oct. 1, 2021, rupture spilled about 25,000 gallons (94,600 liters) of oil into the Pacific Ocean, closed miles of beaches for a week, shuttered fisheries for months and coated birds and wetlands in oil.

    The approval to rebuild the pipe running from an oil rig off Huntington Beach to tanks in Long Beach comes less than a month after Amplify pleaded guilty to federal charges of negligently discharging oil. The Houston-based company and two subsidiaries also agreed to plead no contest in state court to polluting water and killing birds.

    Amplify said the approval will allow it to remove and replace the damaged segments of pipe from the ocean floor.

    It estimated the work would take up to a month after a barge is in place. If it passes a series of safety tests after being fixed, the company said it expected to begin operating in the first quarter of 2023.

    Environmentalists who want the pipeline shut down criticized the permit approval and renewed calls to put an end to offshore oil operations.

    “The Biden administration just ramped up the risk of yet another ugly oil spill on California’s beautiful coast,” said Brady Bradshaw of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Unfortunately, people living near offshore drilling infrastructure are all too familiar with this abusive cycle of drill, spill, repeat.”

    On Wednesday, the environmental group sued the federal government for allowing the platform where the pipeline originated to operate under outdated plans that indicated the platform should have been decommissioned more than a decade ago. The lawsuit also said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management failed to review and require plan revisions, despite the spill.

    Amplify contended that the spill wouldn’t have occurred if two ships hadn’t dragged their anchors across the pipeline and damaged it during a January 2021 storm. It said it wasn’t notified about the anchor snagging until after the spill.

    While the size of the spill was not as bad as initially feared, U.S. prosecutors said the company should have been able to turn off the damaged line much sooner had it recognized the gravity of a series of leak-detection alarms over a 13-hour period.

    The first alarm sounded late on the afternoon of Oct. 1, 2021, but workers misinterpreted the cause, according to the federal plea agreement.

    When the alarm sounded throughout the night, workers shut down the pipeline to investigate and then restarted it after deciding they were false alarms. That spewed more oil.

    It wasn’t until after daybreak that a boat identified the spill and the line was shut down.

    As part of a federal court agreement to pay a $7 million fine and nearly $6 million in expenses incurred by agencies including the U.S. Coast Guard, the company and subsidiaries agreed to install a new leak-detection system and train employees to identify and respond to potential leaks.

    The company agreed to plead guilty to six state misdemeanor charges and pay $4.9 million in penalties and fines as part of a settlement.

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  • Ian shows the risks and costs of living on barrier islands

    Ian shows the risks and costs of living on barrier islands

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    SANIBEL ISLAND, Fla. — When Hurricane Ian struck Florida’s Gulf Coast, it washed out the bottom level of David Muench’s home on the barrier island of Sanibel along with several cars, a Harley-Davidson and a boat.

    His parents’ house was among those destroyed by the storm that killed at least two people there, and the lone bridge to the crescent-shaped island collapsed, cutting off access by car to the mainland for its 6,300 residents.

    Hurricane Ian underscores the vulnerability of the nation’s barrier islands and the increasing costs of people living on the thin strips of land that parallel the coast. As hurricanes become more destructive, experts question whether such exposed communities can keep rebuilding in the face of climate change.

    “This is a Hurricane Katrina-scale event, where you’re having to rebuild everything, including the infrastructure,” said Jesse M. Keenan, a real estate professor at Tulane University’s School of Architecture. “We can’t build back everything to what it was — we can’t afford that.”

    Ian slammed into southwest Florida as a Category 4 hurricane Wednesday with among the highest windspeeds in U.S. history — in nearly the same spot where Hurricane Charley, also a Category 4, caused major damage in 2004.

    The latest storm has initiated a new cycle of damage and repair on Sanibel that’s played out on many other barrier islands, from the New Jersey shore and North Carolina’s Outer Banks to a ribbon of land along the Louisiana coast.

    Barrier islands were never an ideal place for development, experts say. They typically form as waves deposit sediment off the mainland. And they move based on weather patterns and other ocean forces. Some even disappear.

    Building on the islands and holding them in place with beach replenishment programs just makes them more vulnerable to destruction because they can no longer move, according to experts.

    “They move at the whims of the storms,” said Anna Linhoss, a professor of biosystems engineering at Auburn University. “And if you build on them, you’re just waiting for a storm to take them away.”

    After devastating parts Florida, Ian made landfall again in South Carolina, where Pawleys Island was among the hardest hit places. Friday’s winds and rains broke apart the barrier island’s main pier, one of several in the state to crumble and wash away.

    On Saturday, homeowners in the beach community about 73 miles (120 kilometers) up the coast from Charleston struggled to assess damage from storm. The causeways connecting the island to the mainland were strewn with palm fronds, pine needles and even a kayak retrieved from a nearby shoreline. The intercoastal waterway was littered with the remnants of several boat houses torn apart and knocked off their pilings in the storm.

    Like Pawleys Island, many barrier island communities anchor long-entrenched tourist economies, which are often the source of crucial tax dollars. At the same time, the cost of rebuilding them is often high because they’re home to many expensive properties, such as vacation homes.

    “When there’s a disaster like this, we will pour tens of billions of public dollars into these communities to help them rebuild,” said Robert S. Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, which is a joint venture between Duke University and Western Carolina University.

    “And we will ask very little for that money in return in terms of taking a step back from places that are incredibly exposed to hazards and making sure that we never have this kind of a disaster again,” Young said.

    But any big changes to the standard disaster response will be complicated, said Dawn Shirreffs, Florida director of the Environmental Defense Fund.

    Challenges could include decisions on who participates in programs that elevate flood-prone homes or programs that buy those homes and tear them down. Planting mangroves to prevent erosion could end up blocking someone’s view.

    Many homeowners bought their properties before people were fully aware of climate change and the risks of sea-level rise, Shirreffs said.

    But Keenan, the Tulane professor, said Sanibel will undoubtedly be changed by Hurricane Ian based on the research he’s done. There will be fewer government resources to help people rebuild. Those with fewer means and who are underinsured will likely move. People with financial means will stay.

    “Sanibel will just be an enclave for the ultrawealthy,” Keenan said.

    But Muench, the Sanibel resident, said homeowners and business owners are sure to rebuild their properties.

    His family has owned and operated a campground on the island for three generations. The island, he said, is “paradise — we live in the most beautiful place on Earth.”

    “We are going to continue to exist on Sanibel,” Muench, 52, said from Fort Myers on Friday after evacuating Sanibel. “Give us five years, and you might not even notice if you didn’t know.”

    ———

    Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia. Associated Press reporters Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Meg Kinnard in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, contributed to this story.

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  • Newsom relaxes refinery rules as California gas prices soar

    Newsom relaxes refinery rules as California gas prices soar

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    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced that oil refineries could start selling more polluting winter-blend gasoline ahead of schedule to ease soaring fuel prices, directly contradicting his own goals for reducing climate pollutants.

    The average cost of a gallon of gas was $6.30 in California on Friday, far above the national average of $3.80, according to AAA. Newsom administration officials said the difference between state prices and the national average has never been larger.

    The Democratic governor also called on state lawmakers to pass a new tax on oil company profits and return the money to California taxpayers. Lawmakers don’t return to the Capitol until January, Newsom’s office provided few details on the proposal.

    “They’re ripping you off,” he said of the oil industry in a video posted to Twitter.

    Oil industry representatives said it is state regulations that cause higher prices in California than the rest of the country. The summer blend of gasoline that refineries are required by law to produce in the hotter months costs more money to make but is designed to limit pollutants like smog. Most refineries can’t switch to the winter blend until November.

    Switching from the summer to winter blend would likely save consumers 15 to 20 cents per gallon, said Doug Shupe, a spokesman for the Southern California Automobile Club, an affiliate of AAA. Gas prices in Los Angeles are close to breaking a record of $6.46 set in June, he said.

    “If these prices go up to $7 a gallon, a 15-cent drop is not really going to mean much to drivers,” Shupe said.

    Prices are spiking in part due to limited supply because some oil refineries are offline due to routine maintenance or other problems, he said. The California Air Resources Board, which regulates refineries, said high prices could also be due to part to a refinery fire and Hurricane Ian.

    It’s the latest spat between Newsom and the oil industry, which holds political and economic sway in California despite the state’s aggressive climate policies. But Newsom’s dual actions Friday also illustrate the complicated reality Newsom faces as he tries to wean the state off oil and gas while responding to economic reality.

    Earlier this year, for example, Newsom’s administration turned to generators and power plants that run on fossil fuels to help avoid rolling power blackouts during a heat wave.

    By urging air regulators to let oil companies switch to a winter blend earlier, Newsom is acknowledging that state rules play a role in prices, said Kara Greene, a spokeswoman for the Western States Petroleum Association.

    Refineries typically perform maintenance in the spring or fall as they prepare to switch fuel blends, she said. It will take time for refineries to prepare the winter blend, and Newsom’s order may have little immediate effect, she said. If Newsom truly wanted to lower prices, he could suspend the state’s gas tax or relax other regulations, she said.

    “It’s a conscious decision to try and put the responsibility back on the oil industry,” she said.

    Newsom said he expected the relaxation of refinery rules to increase supplies by 5% to 10% because refiners have already started to produce and store the gas.

    “Any impacts on air quality caused by this action are expected to be minimal and outweighed by the public interest in temporarily relaxing” the limits, the air board said in a statement.

    Starting in January, oil companies will be required to disclose their monthly profits to the state under legislation Newsom recently signed. Consumer Watchdog called on Newsom earlier this week to call a special legislative session to approve a tax on those profits.

    Jamie Court, the group’s president, said he applauded Newsom’s efforts to deal with “an industry that’s out of control.”

    Democratic leaders in the state Legislature said a windfall tax on oil profits deserves “strong consideration,” while Republicans said Newsom should immediately suspend the state gas tax to provide relief.

    Major oil companies saw record profits this summer, and the price of crude oil has dropped since the end of the summer.

    The California Energy Commission on Friday wrote a letter to executives of five major oil companies asking why prices rose so dramatically, what actions the state could take to lower prices and why refinery inventory levels have dropped.

    Greene, of the petroleum association, said California regulations raise the price of oil by just under $1 in California, but other observers say its lower. Court, of Consumer Watchdog, says its around 60 cents, while Severin Borenstein, an energy economist with the University of California, Berkeley, says its closer to 70 cents.

    Borenstein has also identified an unexplained surcharge that he says has caused Californians billions of dollars since 2015.

    Newsom in 2019 directed the state attorney general to look into whether oil companies were overcharging Californians. Attorney General Rob Bonta has said his office is still investigating.

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  • Baltic Sea pipeline leak damages marine life and climate

    Baltic Sea pipeline leak damages marine life and climate

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    WASHINGTON — Methane escaping from the damaged Nord Stream pipelines that run between Russia and Europe is likely to result in the biggest known gas leak to take place over a short period of time and highlights the problem of large methane escapes elsewhere around the world, scientists say.

    There is still uncertainty in estimating total damage, but researchers say vast plumes of this potent greenhouse gas will have significant detrimental impacts on the climate.

    Immediate harm to marine life and fisheries in the Baltic Sea and to human health will also result because benzene and other trace chemicals are typically present in natural gas, researchers say.

    “This will probably be the biggest gas leak ever, in terms of its rate,” said Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson.

    The velocity of the gas erupting from four documented leaks in the pipelines — which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has attributed to sabotage — is part of what makes the impacts severe.

    When methane leaks naturally leaks from vents on the ocean floor, the quantities are usually small and the gas is mostly absorbed by seawater. “But this is not a normal situation for gas release,” said Jackson. “We’re not talking about methane bubbling up to the surface like seltzer water, but a plume of rushing gas,” he said.

    Jackson and other scientists estimate that between 50% and nearly 100% of total methane emitted from the pipeline will reach the atmosphere.

    The Danish government issued a worst case scenario that assumed all the gas reached the air, and German officials Thursday issued a somewhat lower one.

    In the meantime, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to approach the highly flammable plume to attempt to curb the release of gas, which energy experts estimate may continue until Sunday.

    “Methane is very flammable — if you go in there, you’d have a good chance of it being a funeral pyre,” said Ira Leifer, an atmospheric scientist. If the gas-air mix was within a certain range, an airplane could easily ignite travelling into the plume, for example.

    Methane isn’t the only risk. “Natural gas isn’t refined to be super clean — there are trace elements of other compounds, like benzene,” a carcinogen, said Leifer.

    “The amount of these trace elements cumulatively entering the environment is significant right now — this will cause issues for fisheries and marine ecosystems and people who potentially eat those fish,” he said.

    David Archer, a professor in the geophysical sciences department at University of Chicago who focuses on the global carbon cycle, said that escape of methane in the Baltic Sea is part of the much larger worldwide problem of methane emissions.

    The gas is a major contributor to climate change, responsible for a significant share of the climate disruption people are already experiencing. That is because it is 82.5 times more potent than carbon dioxide at absorbing the sun’s heat and warming the Earth, over the short term.

    Climate scientist have found that methane emissions from the oil and gas industry are far worse than what companies are reporting, despite claims by major companies that they’ve reduced their emissions.

    Scientists measuring methane from satellites in space have found that emissions from oil and gas operations are usually at least twice as high as what the companies reported, said Thomas Lauvaux, climate scientist at University of Reims in France.

    Many of those so-called leaks are not accidental. Companies release the gas during routine maintenance. Lauvaux and other scientists observed more than 1,500 major methane leaks globally, and potentially tens of thousands of smaller leaks, using satellites, he said.

    —

    AP reporters Patrick Whittle contributed from Portland, Maine, Seth Borenstein from Washington, DC., and Cathy Bussewitz from New York.

    ——

    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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  • Biden looks to win over Pacific Island leaders at summit

    Biden looks to win over Pacific Island leaders at summit

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    WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is hosting Pacific Island leaders for a two-day summit as the U.S. looks to counter China’s military and economic influence in the region. Pacific Island leaders, meanwhile, see an even more pressing concern: climate change.

    Secretary of State Antony Blinken kicked off the summit on Wednesday with a luncheon for the Pacific Island leaders and other senior officials from the region. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry will hold a climate roundtable with the leaders, and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will join them for a dinner hosted by the U.S. Coast Guard.

    Biden is set to address the leaders at the State Department on Thursday and will host them for a dinner at the White House. The leaders also are to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. business leaders.

    Leaders from Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and New Caledonia are attending. Vanuatu and Nauru are sending representatives, and Australia, New Zealand and the secretary-general of the Pacific Island Forum sent observers, according to the White House.

    “This summit reflects our deep, enduring partnership with the Pacific Islands; one that’s underpinned by shared history, values, and enduring people-to-people ties,” Blinken told leaders as he opened the summit. Talks are expected to touch on climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and economic recovery, maritime security, environmental protection and the Indo-Pacific.

    The first-of-its-kind summit comes as the administration has sought to demonstrate that the U.S. remains committed to being a enduring player in the region.

    While the high-level gathering is welcomed by the region’s leaders as a signal of Biden’s commitment to the Pacific, there’s also a healthy skepticism about whether the United States will remain engaged for the longer term in the Pacific Islands. The area has received diminished attention from the U.S. in the aftermath of the Cold War and China has increasingly filled the vacuum, analysts say.

    The Solomon Islands has signaled it was unlikely to sign on to a joint statement that the U.S. hoped to have hashed out by the end of the summit, according to a diplomat familiar with summit planning.

    The diplomat, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the resistance is driven in part by the Solomon Islands’ tightening relationship with Beijing and in part is seen as an effort to press the U.S. for greater economic assistance.

    A senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters before the summit said discussions on the joint statement are still ongoing.

    For the Biden administration, stemming the growing influence of China is a high priority. But for many of the Pacific Island leaders, climate change is the existential crisis that demands attention above all else.

    Last week at the U.N. General Assembly, Prime Minister Kausea Natano of the tiny island of Tuvalu described how rising sea levels have affected everything from the soil that his people rely on to plant crops, to the homes, roads and power lines that get washed away. The cost of eking out a living, he said, eventually becomes too much to bear, causing families to leave and the nation to disappear.

    “This is how our islands will cease to exist,” Natano said.

    In June, Inia Seruiratu, Fiji’s minister for defense, said at the Shangri-La Dialogue that “machine guns, fighter jets, gray ships and green battalions are not our primary security concern.”

    “The single greatest threat to our very existence is climate change,” he said.

    Plans for the summit were announced earlier this month, just days after the Solomon Islands called on the U.S. and Britain not to send naval vessels to the South Pacific nation until approval processes are overhauled. The Solomons in April signed a new security pact with China — a moment that analysts say has created increased urgency for the Biden administration to put greater focus on the region.

    The United States and Britain are among countries concerned that a new security pact with Beijing could lead to a Chinese naval base being constructed less than 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) off Australia’s northeast coast.

    Darshana Baruah, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Beijing has been more present in the region in the last decades.

    “The first questions from the islands to the United States are, ‘Is this going to last beyond the current tense cycle? Are you going to keep showing up,?’” Baruah said. “The second question is, ‘What kind of messaging is this sending across the Indo-Pacific? Are you mistakenly giving the impression that if you want Washington’s attention you must grab Beijing’s purse?’”

    In the leadup to the summit, Pacific Island leaders made clear that they want increased U.S. assistance on battling the impacts of climate change and help for their economies recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a senior Biden administration official.

    The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the “lapse” in the U.S. efforts in the region comes up in “every meeting” with Pacific Island leaders. The White House plans to announce its first U.S. Pacific Island Strategy and announce that the Democratic president will appoint a U.S. envoy to the Pacific Islands Forum.

    The U.S. will also be seeking to mend relations with the Marshall Islands, which for decades has been a strong ally but which is in a bitter dispute over a treaty that’s up for renewal.

    Just last week, the Marshall Islands pulled out of a negotiating session with the U.S. over their Compact of Free Association, which expires next year. The Marshall Islands says the U.S. isn’t engaging in its claim for proper reparations from the legacy of U.S. nuclear testing in the islands.

    The Marshall Islands says there was extensive environmental and health damage from the dozens of tests in the 1940s and ’50s, which a settlement in the 1980s fell well short of addressing.

    The U.S. has treated the Marshall Islands, along with nearby Micronesia and Palau, much like territories since World War II, and observers worry that a weakening of those ties would play into the hands of China.

    The administration in recent months has sought to have greater presence in the region. In February, Blinken became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Fiji in 37 years. And in recent months, the U.S. along with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the U.K. created an informal group aimed at boosting economic and diplomatic ties with Pacific Island nations dubbed Partners in the Blue Pacific.

    During the Fiji visit, Blinken announced the U.S. would open an embassy in the Solomon Islands. The U.S. operated an embassy in the Solomons for five years before closing it in 1993. Since then, U.S. diplomats from neighboring Papua New Guinea have been accredited to the Solomons, which has a U.S. consular agency.

    Guadalcanal, the largest landmass in the Solomon Islands, was the site of the crucial battles between Allied forces and Japan early in World War II.

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    Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Nick Perry in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed reporting.

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