Month: November 2021

COVID-19 Hot Spots Offer Sign of What Could Be Ahead for US 

The contagious delta variant is driving up COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Mountain West and fueling disruptive outbreaks in the North, a worrisome sign of what could be ahead this winter in the U.S.

While trends are improving in Florida, Texas and other Southern states that bore the worst of the summer surge, it’s clear that delta isn’t done with the United States. COVID-19 is moving north and west for the winter as people head indoors, close their windows and breathe stagnant air.

“We’re going to see a lot of outbreaks in unvaccinated people that will result in serious illness, and it will be tragic,” said Dr. Donald Milton of the University of Maryland School of Public Health.

In recent days, a Vermont college suspended social gatherings after a spike in cases tied to Halloween parties. Boston officials shut down an elementary school to control an outbreak. Hospitals in New Mexico and Colorado are overwhelmed.

In Michigan, the three-county metro Detroit area is again becoming a hot spot for transmissions, with one hospital system reporting nearly 400 COVID-19 patients. Mask-wearing in Michigan has declined to about 25% of people, according to a combination of surveys tracked by an influential modeling group at the University of Washington.

“Concern over COVID in general is pretty much gone, which is unfortunate,” said Dr. Jennifer Morse, medical director at health departments in 20 central and northern Michigan counties. “I feel strange going into a store masked. I’m a minority. It’s very different. It’s just a really unusual atmosphere right now.”

New Mexico is running out of intensive care beds despite the state’s above-average vaccination rate. Waning immunity may be playing a role. People who were vaccinated early and have not yet received booster shots may be driving up infection numbers, even if they still have some protection from the most dire consequences of the virus.

“Delta and waning immunity — the combination of these two have set us back,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington. “This virus is going to stick with us for a long, long time.”

The delta variant dominates infections across the U.S., accounting for more than 99% of the samples analyzed.

No state has achieved a high enough vaccination rate, even when combined with infection-induced immunity, to avoid the type of outbreaks happening now, Mokdad said.

In a deviation from national recommendations, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed an executive order Thursday that allows any resident 18 or older access to a COVID-19 booster shot, another step to prevent hospitals and health care workers from being overwhelmed by the state’s surge in delta infections.

Progress on vaccination continues, yet nearly 60 million Americans age 12 and older remain unvaccinated. That’s an improvement since July, when 100 million were unvaccinated, said White House COVID-19 coordinator Jeff Zients.

First shots are averaging about 300,000 per day, and the effort to vaccinate children ages 5 to 11 is off to a strong start, Zients said at a briefing Wednesday.

Virginia Tech’s Linsey Marr, a leading researcher on the airborne spread of the coronavirus, predicted the northward spread of the virus in a Twitter post on September 15. The virus spreads in the air and can build up in enclosed rooms with poor ventilation. Colder weather means more people are indoors breathing the same air, Marr said.

Imagine that everyone you spend time with is a smoker and you want to breathe as little of their smoke as possible, she said.

“The closer you are to a smoker, the more exposure you have to that smoke,” Marr said. “And if you’re in a poorly ventilated room, the smoke builds up over time.”

Marr said she and her vaccinated family would use rapid tests before gathering for Christmas to check for infection.

“It’s hard to know what’s coming next with this virus,” Marr said. “We thought we knew, but delta really surprised us. We thought the vaccine would help end this, but things are still dragging on. It’s hard to know what’s going to happen next.”

SpaceX Delivers New Crew of 4 to Station ‘Shining Like a Diamond’

A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts pulled up Thursday at the International Space Station, their new home until spring.

It took 21 hours for the flight from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to the glittering outpost.

The one German and three U.S. astronauts said it was an emotional moment when they first spotted the space station 30 kilometers (20 miles) distant — “a pretty glorious sight,” according to Raja Chari, commander of the Dragon capsule. 

“Floating in space and shining like a diamond,” noted German astronaut Matthias Maurer. “We’re all very thrilled, very excited.” 

The Dragon’s entire flight was automated, with Chari and pilot Tom Marshburn monitoring the capsule systems, ready to take control if necessary. At one point, they reported what looked like a “gnarled knob” or possibly a small mechanical nut floating past their camera’s field of view, but SpaceX Mission Control said it posed no concern. The docking occurred 423 kilometers (263 miles) above the eastern Caribbean. 

The station’s welcoming committee consisted of three astronauts instead of the originally planned seven. That’s because SpaceX returned four of the station residents on Monday, after the new arrivals’ launch kept getting delayed. 

While Chari, Marshburn, Maurer and NASA astronaut Kayla Barron were adapting to weightlessness — all but Marshburn are space rookies — the previous crew was adjusting to life back on Earth.

“Gravity sucks, but getting used to it slowly,” Japanese astronaut Akihoki Hoshide tweeted. 

The new crew will spend the next six months at the space station and, during that time, host two groups of visiting tourists. Russia will launch the first bunch in December and SpaceX the second in February. 

 

After Promise, Musk Sells $1.1 Billion in Tesla Shares to Pay Taxes

After making a promise on Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold about 900,000 shares of the electric car maker’s stock, netting over $1.1 billion that will go toward paying tax obligations for stock options. 

The sales, disclosed in two regulatory filings late Wednesday, will cover tax obligations for stock options granted to Musk in September. He exercised options to buy just over 2.1 million shares for $6.24 each. The company’s stock closed Wednesday at $1,067.95 per share.  

The transactions were “automatically effected” as part of a trading plan adopted on Sept. 14 to sell options that expire next year, according to forms filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. That was nearly two months before he floated the idea of the sale on Twitter. 

After the transactions, Musk still owns about 170 million Tesla shares. 

Musk was Tesla’s largest shareholder as of June, owning about 17% of the company, according to data provider FactSet. He’s the wealthiest person in the world, according to Forbes, with a net worth of around $282 billion, most of it in Tesla stock. 

Last weekend, Musk said he would sell 10% of his holdings in the company, worth more than $20 billion, based on the results of a poll he conducted on Twitter. The sale tweets caused a sell off of the stock Monday and Tuesday, but it recovered some on Wednesday. The shares were up 2.6% to $1,096 in extended trading Wednesday, and they have risen more than 50% this year. 

Wedbush Analyst Daniel Ives said it appears Musk will start selling shares as the year ends. “The question will be for investors if he sells his full 10% ownership stake over the coming months or is it done piece-by-piece during 2022,” Ives wrote in a note to investors. 

Ives calculated that Musk has about $10 billion in taxes coming due on stock options that vest next summer. 

The sometimes abrasive and unpredictable Musk said he proposed selling the stock as some Democrats have been pushing for billionaires to pay taxes when the price of the stocks they hold goes up, even if they don’t sell any shares. However, the wording on unrealized gains, also called a “billionaires tax,” was removed from President Joe Biden’s budget, which is still being negotiated.  

“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock,” he tweeted Saturday afternoon. “Do you support this?” 

Tesla does not pay Musk a cash salary, but has received huge stock options. “I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock,” Musk tweeted. 

Tesla Inc. is based in Palo Alto, California, although Musk has announced it will move its headquarters to Texas. 

US, China Surprise Climate Summit With Joint Declaration

The United States and China surprised the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow on Wednesday with a joint declaration to take action to limit global warming over the next decade.

The declaration came as delegates entered the final hours of negotiations to agree on a final text at the conference that will outline how the world will limit global warming to less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

China and the United States are the world’s two biggest polluters, and scientists say their future actions are critical in the fight against climate change. The absence of Chinese leader Xi Jinping from the summit last week was strongly criticized by U.S. President Joe Biden.

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry told reporters in Glasgow on Wednesday that the joint declaration builds on statements made by both countries in April.

“We also expressed a shared desire for success at this COP on mitigation, adaptation, support and, frankly, all of the key issues which will result in the world raising ambition and being able to address this crisis. Now, with this announcement, we’ve arrived at a new step, a road map for our present and future collaboration on this issue,” Kerry said at a press conference.

“The United States and China have no shortage of differences, but on climate, cooperation is the only way to get this job done. This is not a discretionary thing, frankly. This is science. It’s math and physics that dictate the road that we have to travel,” Kerry added.

China’s chief climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, echoed those sentiments.

“Climate change is a challenge, a common challenge, faced by humanity,” Xie told reporters. “It bears on the well-being of future generations. Now, climate change is becoming increasingly urgent and severe, making it a future challenge into an existential crisis. In the area of climate change, there is more agreement between China and the U.S. than divergence, making it an area with huge potential for our cooperation. We are two days away from the end of the Glasgow COP, so we hope that this joint declaration can make a China-U.S. contribution to the success of COP26.”

Among the joint pledges were cooperation on controlling methane emissions, tackling illegal deforestation, enhancing renewable energy generation and speeding up financial support for poorer nations. But the declaration did not include many specific dates or targets.

Cautious welcome

After the joint declaration, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted, “I welcome today’s agreement between China and the USA to work together to take more ambitious #ClimateAction in this decade. Tackling the climate crisis requires international cooperation and solidarity, and this is an important step in the right direction.”

Climate activists offered a cautious welcome to the declaration.

“This announcement comes at a critical moment at COP26 and offers new hope that with the support and backing of two of the world’s most critical voices, we may be able to limit climate change to 1.5 degrees,” Genevieve Maricle, director of U.S. climate policy action at the World Wildlife Fund, wrote in an email to VOA. “But we must also be clear-eyed about what is still required if the two countries are to deliver the emission reductions necessary in the next nine years. 1.5C-alignment will require a whole-of-economy response.”

Momentum

The joint declaration has given new momentum to the negotiations as delegates try to agree on a final text, officially known as the “cover decision,” by the end of the conference on Friday. The text details how parties to the COP26 summit will limit global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees C in Earth’s average temperatures above pre-industrial levels — the target agreed on at the Paris climate summit in 2015.

The first draft text of the decision, published Wednesday, urges countries to “revisit and strengthen” their targets on cutting emissions before the end of 2022. It says rich countries should go beyond the pledge to pay poorer nations $100 billion a year. The draft text calls on governments to phase out coal and fossil fuels, but with no fixed dates.

The COP26 host, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, urged delegates to “grasp the opportunity.”

“We’re now finding things are tough, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It doesn’t mean that we can’t keep 1.5 alive,” Johnson said. “I think with sufficient energy and commitment, and with leaders from around the world now ringing up their negotiators and asking them to move in the ways that they know they can move and should move, I still think we can achieve it. But I’m not going to pretend to you that it is by any means a done deal.”

Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, told VOA that the language of the draft text was weak.

“This is not a plan to address the climate emergency. It’s a bit like a pledge and a wink and a hope,” Morgan said. “Countries need to commit to actually come back to increase and strengthen their targets and their actions. That’s clearly one thing. The text does include that coal will be phased out and fossil fuel subsidies will be phased out. I think optimally, you would have dates by which time they would be phased out, but it’s important that they’re there.”

Climate finance

Delegates are also negotiating how much — and quickly — richer nations should pay poorer countries to help them deal with the impact of climate change and de-carbonize their economies. While richer countries are responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions, developing countries tend to suffer greater impacts of climate change. A pledge first made in 2009 by richer nations to pay $100 billion annually — and renewed at the Paris climate summit in 2015 — has still not been fulfilled.

“It’s very frustrating to see countries that have spent six years conspicuously patting themselves on the back for signing that promissory note in Paris, quietly edging towards default now that vulnerable nations and future generations are demanding payment here now in Glasgow,” Johnson said Wednesday.

“Rust” Shooting Raises Questions About Security on Movie Sets

A fatal shooting during the production of a movie called “Rust” is raising questions about safety on movie sets. Authorities are still investigating the October 21st shooting south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with Tim Forrest, director of the film program at Central New Mexico Community College about safety measures on production sets.

International Space Station to Maneuver to Avoid Satellite Junk

The International Space Station will perform a brief maneuver on Wednesday to dodge a fragment of a defunct Chinese satellite, Russian space agency Roscosmos said.

The station crewed by seven astronauts will climb 1,240 meters higher to avoid a close encounter with the fragment and will settle in an orbit 470.7 km (292 miles) above the Earth, Roscosmos said. It did not say how large the debris was.

“In order to dodge the ‘space junk’, (mission control) specialists … have calculated how to correct the orbit of the International Space Station,” the agency’s statement said.

The station will rely on the engines of the Progress space truck that is docked to it to carry out the move.

An ever-swelling amount of space debris is threatening satellites hovering around Earth, making insurers leery of offering coverage to the devices that transmit texts, maps, videos and scientific data.

The document reaffirms the goals set in Paris in 2015 of limiting warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, with a more stringent target of trying to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) preferred because that would keep damage from climate change “much lower.”

Highlighting the challenge of meeting those goals, the document “expresses alarm and concern that human activities have caused around 1.1 C (2 F) of global warming to date and that impacts are already being felt in every region.”

Small island nations, which are particularly vulnerable to warming, worry that too little is being done to stop warming at the 1.5-degree goal — and that allowing temperature increases up to 2 degrees would be catastrophic for their countries.

“For Pacific (small island states), climate change is the greatest, single greatest threat to our livelihood, security and wellbeing. We do not need more scientific evidence nor targets without plans to reach them or talking shops,” Marshall Islands Health and Human Services minister told fellow negotiators Wednesday. “The 1.5 limit is not negotiable.”

Separate draft proposals were also released on other issues being debated at the talks, including rules for international carbon markets and the frequency by which countries have to report on their efforts.

The draft calls on nations that don’t have national goals that would fit with the 1.5- or 2-degree limits to come back with stronger targets next year. Depending on how the language is interpreted, the provision could apply to most countries. Analysts at the World Resources Institute counted that element as a win for vulnerable countries.

“This is crucial language,” WRI International Climate Initiative Director David Waskow said Wednesday. “Countries really are expected and are on the hook to do something in that timeframe to adjust.”

Greenpeace’s Morgan said it would have been even better to set a requirement for new goals every year.

In a nod to one of the big issues for poorer countries, the draft vaguely “urges” developed nations to compensate developing countries for “loss and damage,” a phrase that some rich nations don’t like. But there are no concrete financial commitments.

“This is often the most difficult moment,” Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Development Program and former chief of the U.N.’s environment office, said of the state of the two-week talks.

“The first week is over, you suddenly recognize that there are a number of fundamentally different issues that are not easily resolvable. The clock is ticking,” he told The Associated Press.

Countries Agree to Create Green Shipping Lanes in Pursuit of Zero Carbon

A coalition of 19 countries including Britain and the United States on Wednesday agreed to create zero emissions shipping trade routes between ports to speed up the decarbonization of the global maritime industry, officials involved said. 

Shipping, which transports about 90% of world trade, accounts for nearly 3% of the world’s CO2 emissions.

U.N. shipping agency the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has said it aims to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions from ships by 50% from 2008 levels by 2050. The goal is not aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the sector is under pressure to be more ambitious.

The signatory countries involved in the ‘Clydebank Declaration’, which was launched at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, agreed to support the establishment of at least six green corridors by 2025, which will require developing supplies of zero emissions fuels, the infrastructure required for decarbonization and regulatory frameworks.

“It is our aspiration to see many more corridors in operation by 2030,” their mission statement said.

Britain’s maritime minister Robert Courts said countries alone would not be able to decarbonize shipping routes without the commitment of private and non-governmental sectors.

“The UK and indeed many of the countries, companies and NGOs here today believe zero emissions international shipping is possible by 2050,” Courts said at the launch.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the declaration was “a big step forward for green shipping corridors and collective action”.

Buttigieg added that the United States was “pressing for the IMO to adopt a goal of zero emissions for international shipping by 2050”.

The IMO’s Secretary General Kitack Lim said on Saturday “we must upgrade our ambition, keeping up with the latest developments in the global community”.

Industry needs regulatory help

Jan Dieleman, president of ocean transportation with agri business giant Cargill, one of the world’s biggest ship charterers, said “the real challenge is to turn any statements (at COP26) into something meaningful”.

“The majority of the industry has accepted we need to decarbonize,” he told Reuters.

“Industry leadership needs to be followed up with global regulation and policies to ensure industry-wide transformation. We will not succeed without global regulation.”

Christian Ingerslev, chief executive of Maersk Tankers, which has over 210 oil products tankers under commercial management, said it had spent over $30 million over the last three years to bring their carbon emissions down through digital solutions.

“We need governments to not only back the regulatory push but also to help create the zero emissions fuels at scale,” he said.

“The only way this is going to work is to set a market-based measure through a carbon tax.”

Other signatory countries are Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Denmark, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Republic of Ireland, Japan, Marshall Islands, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.

Pfizer Asks US Regulators to Expand Booster Shot of COVID-19 Vaccine to All Adult Americans

U.S.-based drugmaker Pfizer is seeking to make a booster shot of its COVID-19 vaccine available to all adult Americans 18 years of age and older.

Pfizer filed the request Tuesday with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, citing a new clinical trial involving 10,000 volunteers who received a third injection of the two-dose vaccine, which it developed in collaboration with German-based BioNTech. According to Pfizer, the preliminary results show the third shot boosted a person’s protection against the virus to about 95%.

The request comes just weeks after the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorized a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine for Americans 65 and older, adults at a high risk of severe illness, plus front-line workers such as teachers, health care workers and others whose jobs place them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19. The Pfizer booster shot is available for people regardless of whether they initially received the two-shot Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which offers less protection than either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.

Astra-Zeneca’s separate unit

British-Swedish drugmaker Astra-Zeneca announced Tuesday that it is creating a separate unit entirely devoted to developing and manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. The company’s two-shot vaccine, developed in collaboration with the University of Oxford, had a troubled rollout due to manufacturing delays and confirmation of a link between the vaccine and rare, possibly fatal blood clots, prompting some governments to limit its use among certain age groups.

But the AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper and easier to use because it does not need to be stored at ultra-cold temperatures than either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The vaccine makes up the bulk of the vaccine supply of COVAX, the international vaccine sharing mechanism for the world’s poorest nations supported by the United Nations and the health organizations Gavi and CEPI.

Meanwhile, the current surge of new COVID-19 infections in Germany prompted Dr. Christian Drosten, the head of virology at Berlin’s Charite Hospital, to issue a warning Wednesday that 100,000 people could die if the vaccination rate does not pick up quickly, and that Germany faces “a very tough winter with new shutdown measures.”

Drosten’s warning coincided with an announcement by the country’s Robert Koch Institute of 39,676 new COVID-19 infections across Germany, a new one-day record. Charite Hospital announced Tuesday that it is postponing all non-critical operations due to the growing rate of new COVID-19 patients.

In a related matter, the country’s vaccine advisory committee Wednesday recommended that people 30 years of age and under be vaccinated only with the Pfizer vaccine. The committee cited a higher risk of younger people developing a rare side effect of myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart, from the Moderna vaccine than the Pfizer version.

NFL vaccination

In the U.S. sports world, quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers franchise acknowledged “misleading” the public about his vaccination status shortly before the start of the current season.

Rodgers has been under intense criticism since last week’s revelation that he had tested positive for COVID-19, contradicting his earlier claims back in August that he had been “immunized.” Rodgers told radio sports host Pat McAfee after his diagnosis that he had not taken any of the approved vaccines because of concerns about adverse side effects, and instead relied on homeopathic treatments as an alternative.

In a follow-up interview with McAfee Tuesday, Rodgers said he took “full responsibility” for his comments back in August, but also said that he continued to stand by his concerns about the vaccines. He also said he expects to be cleared to rejoin the Packers in time for Sunday’s game against the Seattle Seahawks.

The NFL has fined Rodgers and teammate Allen Lazard $14,650 each for violating the league’s COVID-19 protocols for unvaccinated players when they attended a Halloween party despite their status. The Packers were also fined $300,000 for failing to discipline the players and for not reporting the violations to NFL officials.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.

Marie Antoinette’s Diamond Bracelets Fetch $8.3 Million at Auction

A pair of diamond bracelets that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the famed wife of French King Louis XVI who met her fate at the revolutionary guillotine, sold for 7.46 million Swiss francs ($8.34 million) on Tuesday. 

The opulent bracelets, among the rare pieces of jewelry from the ill-fated French royal that are still up for public sale today, were among standout features to a Christie’s auction in Geneva.

They feature 112 diamonds and each weighs 97 grams (3.4 ounces) and include silver and gold. 

The pair sold for much more than the presale estimate of between 2 million and 4 million Swiss francs ($2.2 million to $4.4 million). The final price included taxes and fees on top of the hammer price. The buyer was not identified.

After Marie Antoinette’s death in the French Revolution in 1793, the bracelets that had been commissioned some 17 years earlier were passed on from her daughter Marie-Therese and kept within royal lineage for over 200 years, Christie’s said. 

On Wednesday, as part of regular Geneva jewelry auctions, rival house Sotheby’s is set to put under the hammer a 26.8-carat oval sapphire surrounded by diamonds, and matching ear clips that once belonged to Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia — pieces that were whisked out of Russia during the country’s 1917 revolution.

The trio is expected to garner as much as 480,000 francs ($525,800). 

On Thursday, Sotheby’s will auction a pair of high-top Nike sneakers from Kobe Bryant, the Los Angeles Lakers shooting guard who died in a helicopter crash in California last year. The basketball shoes are expected to fetch up to 35,000 Swiss francs ($38,400). 

Bryant wore the sneakers in a March 17, 2004, victory over the L.A. Clippers, according to the auction house. 

 

NASA Bumps Astronaut Moon Landing to 2025 at Earliest

NASA on Tuesday delayed putting astronauts back on the moon until 2025 at the earliest, missing the deadline set by the Trump administration.

The space agency had been aiming for 2024 for the first moon landing by astronauts in a half-century. 

In announcing the delay, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Congress did not provide enough money to develop a landing system for its Artemis moon program and more money is needed for its Orion capsule. In addition, a legal challenge by Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, stalled work for months on the Starship lunar landing system under development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Officials said technology for new spacesuits also needs to ramp up, before astronauts can return to the moon. 

NASA is still targeting next February for the first test flight of its moon rocket, the Space Launch System, or SLS, with an Orion capsule. No one will be on board. Instead, astronauts will strap in for the second Artemis flight, flying beyond the moon but not landing in 2024, a year later than planned. That would bump the moon landing to at least 2025, according to Nelson. 

“The human landing system is a crucial part of our work to get the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface, and we are getting geared up to go,” Nelson told reporters. “NASA is committed to help restore America’s standing in the world.” 

Nelson made note of China’s ambitious and aggressive space program, and warned it could overtake the U.S. in lunar exploration. 

NASA’s last moon landing by astronauts occurred during Apollo 17 in 1972. Altogether, 12 men explored the lunar surface. 

During a National Space Council meeting in 2019, Vice President Mike Pence called for landing astronauts on the moon within five years “by any means necessary.” NASA had been shooting for a lunar landing in 2028, and pushing it up by four years was considered at the time exceedingly ambitious, if not improbable.

Congress will need to increase funding, beginning with the 2023 budget, in order for NASA to have private companies competing for the planned 10 or more moon landings by astronauts, Nelson said.

The space agency also is requesting a bigger budget for its Orion capsules, from $6.7 billion to $9.3 billion, citing delays during the coronavirus pandemic and storm damage to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, the main manufacturing site for SLS and Orion. Development costs for the rocket through the first Artemis flight next year stand at $11 billion. 

Vice President Kamala Harris will convene her first National Space Council meeting, as its chair, on December 1. Nelson said he updated her on the latest schedule and costs during their visit to Maryland’s Goddard Space Flight Center on Friday. 

 

Facebook Plans to Remove Thousands of Sensitive Ad-Targeting Options

Facebook Inc. said on Tuesday it plans to remove detailed ad-targeting options that refer to “sensitive” topics, such as ads based on interactions with content around race, health, religious practices, political beliefs or sexual orientation. 

The company, which recently changed its name to Meta and which makes the vast majority of its revenue through digital advertising, has been under intense scrutiny over its ad-targeting abilities and rules in recent years. 

In a blog post, Facebook gave examples of targeting categories that would no longer be allowed on its platforms, such as “Lung cancer awareness,” “World Diabetes Day,” “LGBT culture,” “Jewish holidays” or political beliefs and social issues. It said the change would take place starting Jan. 19, 2022. 

The company has been hit with criticisms around its micro-targeting capabilities, including over abuses such as advertisers discriminating against or targeting vulnerable groups. In 2019, it agreed to make changes to its ads platform as part of a settlement over housing discrimination issues. 

“We’ve heard concerns from experts that targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups,” Graham Mudd, the company’s vice president of product marketing for ads, said in the post. 

Its tailored ad abilities are used by wide-ranging advertisers, including political campaigns and social issue groups, as well as businesses. 

“The decision to remove these Detailed Targeting options was not easy, and we know this change may negatively impact some businesses and organizations,” Mudd said in the post, adding that some advertising partners were concerned they would not be able to use these ads to generate positive social change. 

Advertisers on Facebook’s platforms can still target audiences by location, use their own customer lists, reach custom audiences who have engaged with their content and send ads to people with similar characteristics to those users. 

The move marks a key shift for the company’s approach to social and political advertising, though it is not expected to have major financial implications. CEO Mark Zuckerberg estimated in 2019, for example, that politicians’ ads would make up less than 0.5% of Facebook’s 2020 revenue. 

The issue of political advertising on social media platforms, including whether the content of politicians’ ads should be fact-checked, provoked much debate among the public, lawmakers and companies around the U.S. presidential election. 

Twitter in 2019 banned political ads altogether, but Facebook had previously said it would not limit how political advertisers reached potential voters. 

Facebook, which now allows users to opt to see fewer ads related to topics like politics and alcohol, said on Tuesday it would early next year give people more controls over the ads they see, including ones about gambling and weight loss. 

 

New Zealand Marchers Demand End to COVID-19 Lockdowns, Vaccine Mandates

Thousands of people gathered Tuesday outside of New Zealand’s parliament building in the capital, Wellington, to protest the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 protesters marched through central Wellington carrying signs displaying various anti-mandate slogans, with many waving campaign flags of former U.S. president Donald Trump. Security personnel closed nearly all entrances to the parliament campus and its iconic “Beehive” building during the demonstrations.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told reporters inside parliament, “What we saw today was not representative of the vast bulk of New Zealanders.”

The nation of 5 million people has been among the best in the world at containing the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, largely because New Zealand closed its borders for most of the last 18 months to non-residents.

The strategy to eliminate COVID-19 worked for the most part, with the nation reporting only 28 deaths over the course of the pandemic. Earlier this year, much of the country had all but returned to normal.

But New Zealand has been battling a rise of new infections triggered by the Delta variant since August, prompting Prime Minister Ardern to impose new lockdowns in Auckland, its largest city, and other parts of the country. The new outbreaks also have forced Ardern to change from a strategy of total elimination of COVID-19 to controlling the virus through mass vaccinations.

The government announced a new goal for all doctors, pharmacists, nurses and other health care workers to be fully vaccinated by December, with teachers and other education workers required to be fully vaccinated by January.

Additionally, the government has implemented a new “traffic-light” system that would loosen nearly all restrictions once 90% of an area’s population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Ardern announced Monday the strict lockdown imposed on Auckland will be lifted by the end of November, with some restrictions beginning to ease Tuesday as the city nears 90% vaccination.

Meanwhile, authorities in Singapore announced Monday that beginning December 8, it will no longer pay medical bills for any future COVID-19 patients who are “unvaccinated by choice.”

The city-state currently covers the full medical costs for any Singaporean who tests positive for the virus, as well permanent residents and long-term visa holders, unless they test positive shortly after returning home from overseas.

But Singapore is currently struggling with a surge of new infections that is threatening to overwhelm its health care system, despite 85% of its eligible population having been fully vaccinated.

The Health Ministry said it will continue to cover partly vaccinated patients until December 31 to allow them time to get their second shots.

Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.

SpaceX Returns 4 Astronauts to Earth, Ending 200-Day Flight

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Monday, riding home with SpaceX to end a 200-day space station mission that began last spring.

Their capsule streaked through the late night sky like a dazzling meteor before parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Florida. Recovery boats quickly moved in with spotlights.

“On behalf of SpaceX, welcome home to Planet Earth,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed from Southern California. Within an hour, all four astronauts were out of the capsule, exchanging fist bumps with the team on the recovery ship.

Their homecoming — coming just eight hours after leaving the International Space Station — paved the way for SpaceX’s launch of their four replacements as early as Wednesday night.

The newcomers were scheduled to launch first, but NASA switched the order because of bad weather and an astronaut’s undisclosed medical condition. The welcoming duties will now fall to the lone American and two Russians left behind at the space station.

Before Monday afternoon’s undocking, German astronaut Matthias Maurer, who’s waiting to launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, tweeted it was a shame the two crews wouldn’t overlap at the space station but “we trust you’ll leave everything nice and tidy.” His will be SpaceX’s fourth crew flight for NASA in just 1 1/2 years.

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide and France’s Thomas Pesquet should have been back Monday morning, but high wind in the recovery zone delayed their return.

“One more night with this magical view. Who could complain? I’ll miss our spaceship!” Pesquet tweeted Sunday alongside a brief video showing the space station illuminated against the blackness of space and the twinkling city lights on the nighttime side of Earth.

From the space station, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei — midway through a one-year flight — bid farewell to each of his departing friends, telling McArthur “I’ll miss hearing your laughter in adjacent modules.”

Before leaving the neighborhood, the four took a spin around the space station, taking pictures. This was a first for SpaceX; NASA’s shuttles used to do it all the time before their retirement a decade ago. The last Russian capsule fly-around was three years ago. 

It wasn’t the most comfortable ride back. The toilet in their capsule was broken, and so the astronauts needed to rely on diapers for the eight-hour trip home. They shrugged it off late last week as just one more challenge in their mission.

The first issue arose shortly after their April liftoff; Mission Control warned a piece of space junk was threatening to collide with their capsule. It turned out to be a false alarm. Then in July, thrusters on a newly arrived Russian lab inadvertently fired and sent the station into a spin. The four astronauts took shelter in their docked SpaceX capsule, ready to make a hasty departure if necessary.

Among the upbeat milestones: four spacewalks to enhance the station’s solar power, a movie-making visit by a Russian film crew and the first-ever space harvest of chile peppers.

The next crew will also spend six months up there, welcoming back-to-back groups of tourists. A Japanese tycoon and his personal assistant will get a lift from the Russian Space Agency in December, followed by three businessmen arriving via SpaceX in February. SpaceX’s first privately chartered flight, in September, bypassed the space station.

NASA’s Kathy Lueders, head of space operations, said engineers would evaluate the lagging inflation of one of the four main parachutes, something seen in testing when the lines bunch together. Overall, though, “the return looked spotless.” 

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to see all four of the crew members back on Earth,” she added, “and I’m looking forward to launching another set of four this week.”

Asia’s Forest Loss Leaders Skip, Challenge Global Deforestation Pact

Asian countries with some of the world’s largest yearly tropical forest losses have either not joined a new global pact to halt forest loss by the end of the decade or sparked doubts about their commitment after signing up.   

More than 120 countries joined the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use on November 2 at the United Nations’ COP26 climate conference in Scotland.   

The non-binding agreement commits them to “working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation” — a major cause of global warming — by 2030, with some $19 billion in public and private financing in the works to help developing countries follow through. 

Collectively, Southeast Asia hosts nearly 15% of the world’s tropical forests, prized by climate activists for the volumes of world-warming carbon they can lock up. But most countries in the region have yet to join the COP26 pact, including Laos and Malaysia; both ranked among the top 10 countries in the world for primary tropical forest loss last year, according to the World Resources Institute, a U.S. research group. Cambodia, 11th on WRI’s list, has also not signed up. 

Malaysia signals 

After drawing rebuke from local opposition parties and rights groups for its absence from the pledge, Malaysia announced Friday it will be joining the deal, but did not say when.   

After the declaration was announced without Malaysia on November 3, a local lawmaker, Charles Santiago, called the country’s absence a “tragedy” in a Twitter post. Speaking with VOA, he said it was crucial that the government now make good on its promise to sign up, blaming the country’s mounting forest losses for amplifying the damage from recent floods and robbing endangered wildlife of their habitat.

Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia are the world’s two largest producers of palm oil, a cash crop that takes up vast tracts of land, often over cleared forest and peatland, another rich carbon sink. WRI data show they lost a combined 343,000 hectares in 2020, an area more than twice the size of greater London.   

Santiago said Malaysia’s powerful business interests were all but sure to block the country from meeting the declaration’s 2030 target, assuming it does join. But he argued that Malaysia should sign up regardless to give the country something to aim for and to tap into the international financing that could unlock. 

“As a country, we have to make a decision … whether we should continue with the way we are doing it or [whether] we need to really put some control over deforestation, especially in dealing with oil palm [and] construction,” he said. 

Indonesia wavers 

Environmental groups fear business interests may end up undermining the declaration in Indonesia as well.   

The sprawling archipelago also features on WRI’s top-10 list and cleared more primary tropical forest in 2020 than Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia combined.   

President Joko Widodo signed the country up to the COP26 pact in Glasgow on November 2. A day later, though, Indonesia’s environment minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, called a commitment to zero deforestation by 2030 “inappropriate and unfair,” casting doubt on the nation’s intentions to abide by the deal. 

“Forcing Indonesia to zero deforestation in 2030 is clearly inappropriate and unfair,” she said in a Facebook post.   

“The massive development of President Jokowi’s era must not stop in the name of carbon emissions or in the name of deforestation,” she added, referring to the president by his common nickname.   

In a statement the next day, conservation group Greenpeace called the minister’s remarks “profoundly disappointing.”   

“For Indonesia to have a minister for environment who supports large-scale developments with clear potential for environmental destruction is deplorable. Rather than ensuring we protect the planet for future generations, this is doing the opposite,” the head of the group’s Indonesian forest campaign, Kiki Taufik, said. 

On Friday, though, a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told The Guardian newspaper that Indonesia’s stated goal of net zero forest loss by 2030 — replacing yearly deforestation with just as much or more new forest — was actually consistent with the COP26 pact. 

Mahendra Siregar, Indonesia’s deputy foreign minister, explained the country’s net zero forest loss goal in statement Thursday.   

Mixed messages   

Arief Wijaya, a senior manager for WRI Indonesia, told VOA that all the back and forth was creating some confusion about what the declaration actually commits countries to.   

He said the Long-Term Climate Strategy that Indonesia submitted to the United Nations in July commits the country not to net zero forest loss, but to net zero emission from forest and land use by 2030. That will let it clear more forest and peatland than it replaces or restores by the end of the decade, so long as what it replaces and restores captures at least as much carbon as what it gives off.   

Arief said that will require Indonesia to make sharp cuts to its forest loss rates over the coming years and at least points the country “in the direction of the COP26 pledge” and puts it on a “trajectory toward zero deforestation.” 

Indonesia and Malaysia have been bringing their annual forest losses down for the past few years. That’s not the case for all of Southeast Asia. Cambodia’s losses stayed roughly steady in 2020 after rising the year before. Losses in Laos have been rising for the past two years and were at their highest yet in 2020 since WRI started keeping track in 2001. 

With research suggesting that Southeast Asia’s tropical forests on the whole are a major carbon source, Arief added, every country had a role to play. 

“If we believe that the continental Southeast Asia … is actually a tropical forest belt, and it’s important for the global climate, temperature and so forth, then any country should actually commit and contribute to reduce deforestation and to manage their forests sustainably,” he said.   

Laos’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment did not reply to VOA’s requests for comment. 

Australia Plans Electric Car Boost With 50,000 New Home Charging Stations

Australia’s electric car industry has criticized the government’s new policy to build thousands of charging stations as “far too little, too late.” The Australian government Tuesday pledged $132 million to speed up the rollout of hydrogen refueling and electric charging stations. 

The Electric Vehicles Council says an Australian government plan to build electric vehicle charging stations and hydrogen-powered vehicle fueling stations doesn’t include subsidies, tax incentives or minimum fuel standards, and leaves Australia lagging the rest of the world. 

Transport accounts for one-fifth of Australia’s emissions. Prime Minister Scott Morrison says electric- and hydrogen-powered vehicles are key in efforts to decarbonize the economy. There’s a plan to build 50,000 home charging stations and increase the government’s fleet of electric vehicles.  

Morrison says it’s a bold strategy.   

“Our plan, which is another key part of the overall national plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 — this is one of the key building blocks, the future fuels and the take-up of electric vehicles driven by Australians’ choices,” Morrison said.

The government has forecast that electric and hybrid electric vehicles will make up about a third of annual new car and light truck sales by 2030. Sales hit a record 8,688 in the first half of this year but made up a fraction — about 1.5% — of total sales. 

During the 2019 election campaign, Morrison derided electric cars, insisting they would “end the weekend” because they wouldn’t be able to tow trailers or boats to go camping.    

His stance has changed as environmental pressures grow on governments around the world. 

But critics say the Australian strategy lacks ambition and does nothing to improve affordability of electric cars, which are more expensive than gasoline or diesel models. Morrison insists that costs will come down as technologies improve. 

Opposition Labor leader Anthony Albanese says other countries are leaving Australia behind.    

“There is this massive shift around the world to electric vehicles. Australia’s uptake last year was under 2%. In Norway, it was 70%. In the United Kingdom, it was 15% and rising. We are falling way behind,” Albanese said. 

Australia has some of the world’s highest emissions per person and is a huge exporter of fossil fuels. Despite a pledge to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the Morrison government said its coal and gas industries would not be phased out. 

WFP: $65 Million Needed to Ease Zimbabwe Food Insecurity

The World Food Program says it is seeking $65 million to ease food insecurity in Zimbabwe. The U.N. agency says its assessment shows that more than 5 million people in the southern African nation are looking at food shortages in coming months. 

Belinda Popovska, the WFP Zimbabwe spokeswoman, told VOA on Monday that the U.N. agency had started looking for funds to import food for those in need. 

“The latest 2021 rural Zimbabwe vulnerability assessment committee rural report indicates that 2.9 million people in rural areas – that’s 27% of rural households – continue to be food insecure during the peak lean season between January and March 2022. In urban areas up to 2.4 million people are expected to be food insecure according to the latest 2021 urban livelihoods assessment,” Popovska said.

The government says Zimbabwe experienced a bumper harvest this year, but the lack of food in rural areas indicates the harvest was in fact disappointing.  

Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa says Zimbabwe’s perennial food shortages will end with more production in the farms in the coming 2021/2022 season, which is expected to start anytime now.  

She says the government will make sure farmers have the supplies and money they need to meet national requirements for both human consumption and industrial use.   

“The strategy will result in more area being put to crop production as evidenced by the proposed increases of the following crops: maize, sorghum, pearl millet, finger millet, soybeans and tobacco. The financing of the summer cropping and livestock will be through the private and public sector as well as development partners,” Mutsvangwa said.

Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of the region, has for years been facing food shortages, forcing it to rely on humanitarian organizations such as World Vision, USAID and the WFP to feed the people.  

The government blames the problems on recurring droughts, but its critics point to a chaotic land reform program which started in 2000 and displaced experienced white farmers from their land.   

Patriotic Korean War Epic Topped China’s October Box Office

The dramatic retelling of a decisive Korean War battle between Chinese soldiers and U.S.-led United Nations forces smashed box office records last month to become China’s third-highest grossing film of all-time, according to state media, amid a new push for patriotic-only historical accounts by the Communist Party. 

Released over China’s National Day holidays in early October, The Battle at Lake Changjin is set during November 1950 and recounts how Chinese soldiers forced a retreat of U.N. forces from the Choisin Reservoir in present-day North Korea. 

The film has already earned $875.5 million (5.6 billion RMB) since opening on September 30, according to the e-ticketing platform Maoyan, and it is still showing at some cinemas in China more than a month after opening.    

The Battle at Lake Changjin was commissioned by the Chinese government ahead of the Communist Party’s 100th anniversary this year, and it is the latest in a series of patriotic war-time films to hit Chinese theatres in the last few years. 

Other notable hits include The Korean War epic, The Sacrifice, The Eight Hundred, which recounts the 1937 Battle of Shanghai between invading Japanese forces and the National revolutionary Army, and The Wolf Warrior action film franchise about contemporary People’s Liberation Army soldiers.

In China, the Korean War is officially known as the war to “Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea,” and it has inspired multiple films — but this time the story has changed. According to a review by The Washington Post newspaper, The Battle at Lake Changjin emphasizes the defeat of the United States rather than China’s close bonds with North Korea.

“The Korean War has always been used as propaganda by Beijing — that’s nothing new — but I think what is new is in recent years the elevated level of nationalism as well as the new circumstances in which China and the United States find themselves in,” Adam Ni, a China watcher and editor of the newsletter China Neican, told VOA.   

“The Battle at Lake Changjin,” Ni said, “speaks to the moment” of souring U.S.-China relations — as well as the Party’s renewed emphasis on China’s history and an accompanying crackdown on “historical nihilism” that questions its official narrative of events.    

In one of the most high-profile incidents, Chinese journalist Luo Changping was detained in early October for criticizing The Battle at Lake Changjin, according to The New York Times. Luo wrote on social media that more than 50 years later “few Chinese people have reflected on the justifiability of the war.”  

Luo’s criticism could not have come at a worse time, however, as the Party celebrated its 100th anniversary on October 1. China’s historical narrative has remained front and center throughout celebrations and will be the subject of a resolution this week at the Sixth Plenum of the Central Committee — a meeting of more than 300 of China’s top leaders in Beijing.    

“The Party sees the construction of historical narrative as an integral part of its power and of its legitimacy, so that’s why it’s come down pretty hard on historical nihilism — people who have visions of historical events that are different from the Party in a way that the Party perceives them to be harmful,” Ni said.   

This trend is already making its way into popular culture where the Party is “rectifying the entertainment sector,” he said, by rewarding more patriotic films and pushing out more subservient ones. Less than a month after the success of The Battle at Lake Changjin, the government already announced a sequel — although other films may not be as lucky.  

“The Party has a lot of resources and if your agenda overlaps, if your aesthetic and creative agenda overlaps with the party it could be a lucrative market opportunity because the Party has leverage over market opportunities,” Ni said. “But the other hand you get to the case of ‘boy love’ (LGBTQ-themed) stories or fantasy stories … you could be successful creatively and commercially, but on the other hand, you run the political risk of upsetting the Party.” 

Original Apple Built by Jobs and Wozniak to be Auctioned 

An original Apple computer, hand-built by company founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 45 years ago, goes under the hammer in the United States on Tuesday. 

The functioning Apple-1, the great, great grandfather of today’s sleek chrome-and-glass Macbooks, is expected to fetch up to $600,000 at an auction in California. 

The so-called “Chaffey College” Apple-1, is one of only 200 made by Jobs and Wozniak at the very start of the company’s odyssey from garage start-up to megalith worth $2 trillion. 

What makes it even rarer is the fact it is encased in koa wood — a richly patinated wood native to Hawaii. Only a handful of the original 200 were made in this way. 

Apple-1s were mostly sold as component parts by Jobs and Wozniak. One computer shop that took delivery of around 50 units decided to encase some of them in wood, the auction house said 

“This is kind of the holy grail for vintage electronics and computer tech collectors,” Apple-1 expert Corey Cohen told the Los Angeles Times. “That really makes it exciting for a lot of people.” 

Auctioneers John Moran say the device, which comes with a 1986 Panasonic video monitor, has only ever had two owners. 

“It was originally purchased by an electronics professor at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California, who then sold it to his student in 1977,” a listing on the auction house’s website says. 

The Los Angeles Times reported the student — who has not been named — paid just $650 for it at the time. 

That student now stands to make a pretty penny: A working Apple-1 that came to the market in 2014 was sold by Bonhams for more than $900,000. 

“A lot of people just want to know what kind of a person collects Apple-1 computers and it’s not just people in the tech industry,” Cohen said. 

Obama Speaks at COP26, Says Not Enough Progress on Climate

Former U.S. President Barack Obama told the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on Monday that most nations failed to meet their commitments made in the 2015 Paris Climate Conference agreement and the world is nowhere near where it needs to be in confronting climate change.

Speaking during the second full week of the talks — known as COP26 — Obama said that while the Paris conference and subsequent agreement showed what is possible and created a framework from which to address the challenges of the climate crisis, most nations failed to be as ambitious as they needed to be.

“The escalation, the ratcheting up of ambition that we anticipated in Paris six years ago has not been uniformly realized,” Obama said. He called it “particularly discouraging” that the leaders of China and Russia — two of the largest emitters — declined to even attend the conference, and both nations have demonstrated what he said “appears to be a dangerous lack of urgency” on climate change.

China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter. Its president, Xi Jinping, last week called on other nations to “step up cooperation” and act on climate targets. Xi, however, offered no new commitments. The comments came in a statement to the conference.

Obama said advanced economies like the United States and Europe need to be leading on this issue, but so do China, Russia and India. He said, “We can’t afford anybody on the sidelines.”

Addressing young people, Obama encouraged them to “vote like your life depends on it, because it does.” Obama said he understood their cynicism about politics, but that governments around the world will not act unless they feel pressure from voters.

The 26th U.N. climate conference — or Conference of the Parties, or COP — is Obama’s first since he helped deliver the 2015 Paris climate accord, when nations committed to cutting fossil fuel and agricultural emissions fast enough to keep the Earth’s warming below catastrophic levels.

Climate summits since then have been less conclusive, especially as the U.S. under President Donald Trump dropped out of the Paris accord. President Joe Biden has since rejoined. Last week, Biden announced ambitious change commitments as he attended the Glasgow conference. The U.S. is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. 

 

COP26: Who Pays? 

More than 100,000 climate-action activists from across the world gathered in Glasgow Saturday to protest the agreements and promises made so far at the COP26 climate talks.

According to protesters, the new pledges made during the summit — to cut carbon and methane emissions, end deforestation, phase out coal and provide more financing for poorer countries most vulnerable to extreme weather — are just “eye candy,” falling far short of what’s needed to curb global warming. 

 

Teenage activist Greta Thunberg has described the two-week summit as more “blah blah blah” and called it a “failure.” She told clamorous youth protesters outside the venue that the conference has turned into “a global North Greenwash Festival.”  

Others worry, though, that in the rush to make climate-action pledges, Western governments may be going too fast with decarbonizing and risk losing the support of their own populations by failing to take into account the economic impact of the monumental shifts being envisaged.

Opinion polls suggest that across the globe, overwhelming majorities of people see climate change as an emergency requiring dramatic action. But some polls in recent weeks have also suggested that when people are told what the costs might be for them to help curb global warming, they are reluctant to shoulder the financial burden.

A survey in Britain published Sunday suggested that less than half of the British population are willing to pay thousands of pounds to make their homes greener to help meet net-zero emission goals outlined by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Those polled were asked their opinions on green policies to slash emissions before and after hearing about the estimated upfront costs to insulate their homes and switch from natural gas boilers for heating to heat pumps. In the survey conducted for British think tank Onward by pollster J.L. Partners, 50% backed the idea of better insulation for homes, double glazing and switching to heat pumps. But when they were provided with the estimated cost of $11,000 per household, support trailed away, with just 26% agreeing.

“Millions of voters, broadly supportive of the ‘cleaner earth’ agenda, are wondering how much of the burden of transitioning to a low-carbon, low-emission economy will fall on them, when they’re already struggling to make ends meet,” economist and newspaper columnist Liam Halligan wrote Monday in The Telegraph. 

How to green the planet and fund the transition away from fossil fuel dependency to renewable, sustainable energy, and how to finance projects to make countries more resilient to extreme weather, have been key themes at the summit. The discussion of costs and how to share them between governments (via taxation), consumers, households and the private sector have also been featured.

Last week, major banks, investors and insurers pledged trillions in green funding in a coordinated commitment to incorporate carbon emissions into their investment and lending decisions.

The United Nations’ Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, made up of more than 450 financial institutions across 45 countries and managing assets valued at $130 trillion, have committed to its program to cut carbon emissions and fund investments needed for new greener technologies.

Unveiled last week by U.N. climate envoy Mark Carney, the funding can take the form of bank loans and investments by venture capitalists, private-equity firms, mutual funds, endowments and other big investors that buy stocks and bonds. They would still earn profits while shifting funds toward investments that help reduce carbon emissions.

“These seemingly arcane but essential changes to the plumbing of finance can move and are moving climate changes from the fringes to the forefront and transforming the financial system in the process,” said Carney, a former head of the central banks of England and Canada. “The architecture of the global financial system has been transformed to deliver net zero,” Carney said.

“The gap between what governments have and what the world needs is large,” in order to finance a global energy transition and reach the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in Glasgow after the announcement of the finance measures. “And the private sector needs to play a bigger role.”

Climate activists have decried the pledge, saying it is just another big promise that won’t be observed.

“Global leaders can no longer trust financial institutions to regulate themselves,” Veronica Oakeshott of Global Witness, an international nongovernmental organization, said in a statement.

Some industry analysts and economists say the private sector plans are far from concrete, and significant problems remain on how to measure the carbon footprint of investment portfolios and align those measurements across international financial markets. Who will verify the accuracy of what banks and investors report?

Others worry that financial firms are there to maximize profits for clients and shareholders and risk losing customers or breaching their fiduciary obligations if they fail to maintain good returns. It remains unclear at this stage how profitable green investments will be.

There are also worries that the fossil fuel sector will see further divestments by lenders and investors eager to reduce their carbon footprint, which will boost energy costs for consumers as global demand for natural gas and oil continues to rise. Fossil fuel investments are already insufficient to meet future energy demands.

That, in turn, has contributed to the current global energy crunch and record-high energy prices for households and businesses, say industry commentators. 

India’s latest Zika Outbreak Sees Surge of Nearly 100 Cases

At least 89 people, including 17 children, have tested positive for the Zika virus in a surge of cases in the Indian city of Kanpur, its health department said on Monday.

First discovered in 1947, the mosquito-borne virus Zika virus reached epidemic proportions in Brazil in 2015, when thousands of babies were born with microcephaly, a disorder that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.

“There has been a surge in cases of the Zika virus and the health department has formed several teams to contain the spread,” Dr. Nepal Singh, chief medical officer of Kanpur district in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, told Reuters.

“There is one woman who is pregnant, and we are paying special attention towards her.”

Cases have been reported in several Indian states in recent years, though Amit Mohan Prasad, Uttar Pradesh’s top government bureaucrat for health and family welfare, told Reuters this was the first outbreak in the state.

The first Zika case in the industrial city of Kanpur was detected on Oct. 23 and the number of cases has increased over the past week.

“People are testing positive because we are doing very aggressive contact tracing,” said Prasad. Authorities were increasing their surveillance of the outbreak and eliminating breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that transmit the virus, Singh said.