(PUERTO MORELOS, Mexico) — Two people are dead after a shooting involving alleged drug gangs in a Mexico resort zone Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
The shooting occurred on a beach in Puerto Morelos, south of Cancun, during a confrontation between alleged members of rival groups of drug dealers, according to a statement from the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office. Two of the alleged gang members died, and there were no additional injuries, the office said. Armed suspects escaped in a stolen motorboat, authorities said.
The stretch of beach is near two resorts, and the shooting sent vacationers running to their hotel rooms.
An American vacationing in Cancun confirmed to ABC News that he heard shots fired while at the Hyatt Ziva Hotel in Puerto Morelos.
Shortly after 2 p.m. local time, Jim Wildermuth, of Atlanta, said he was at the pool outside his room with other guests when they heard “cracks.”
“We kind of looked at each other funny,” Wildermuth said.
They then ran up to their rooms and were told to stay there because there was an active shooter on the property, according to Wildermuth, who said he saw military personnel directing people in front of the hotel.
A Hyatt spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News that they are “aware of a developing situation at Hyatt Ziva Riviera Cancun.”
“We understand the hotel team immediately engaged local authorities who are on the scene investigating the situation,” the company said, adding that it is “taking steps in an effort to ensure the safety of guests and colleagues.”
Guests at the hotel were deemed safe after the shooting, authorities said.
A spokesperson for the Azul Beach Resort Riviera Cancun, which is located near the Hyatt Ziva Cancun, told ABC News it has no comment at this time.
The shooting comes nearly two weeks after two female tourists were killed during an apparent drug gang shootout in the Mexico resort destination of Tulum. Three tourists were wounded in the Oct. 23 shooting.
ABC News’ Josh Margolin and Christine Theodorou contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(RUZVAT, Tajikistan) — In many places along Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan, the countries are separated by just a few yards of water — the narrow Panj River.
There are no walls or fences, and, standing on the Tajikistan side, northern Afghanistan is so close that as ABC reporters looked across last week, Taliban fighters waved back at them.
The Taliban have taken control of the Afghan side of the border, something they were unable to achieve even when they ruled there 20 years ago. Now their white flags can be seen flying in the villages perched along the river as it winds between two towering walls of mountains.
The border, which runs through the Pamir Mountains, is a new fault line in a new reality. It’s a place that poses questions to Afghanistan’s neighbors, including regional powers like Russia and China, about what a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan will mean.
There are fears that instability could spread from Afghanistan to surrounding countries. Terrorist groups including ISIS and Al-Qaeda have footholds in northern Afghanistan, and Tajikistan is already a major drugs route. And as a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan threatens, so does a potential refugee exodus.
So where does that leave Tajikistan?
The nearly 850-mile-long border is now closed. As the Taliban advanced this summer, groups of Afghans, mostly government soldiers, began to flee across the border. Tajikistan’s government reacted by sending 20,000 troops to the area.
The sealed border has cut off the flow of refugees. The Taliban are also stopping people, according to Afghans who’ve tried to cross.
ABC News reporters visited a stretch of border in the Darvoz region last week. To enter, foreigners must have special permission and pass through three checkpoints. But beyond that, the only visible security force was an occasional three-man patrol of young conscripts.
Locals said things have been calm since the Taliban took over, with the sound of shooting on the other side stopping. Life has been relatively unchanged, they said, except Tajik security service agents now lived in some villages. The three nearby bridges spanning the river all have been closed.
Tajikistan is the only one of Afghanistan’s neighbors to adopt an openly hostile attitude toward the Taliban since their takeover. Nearly half of Afghanistan’s population are ethnically Tajiks, and in the 1990s, Tajikistan’s government supported the anti-Taliban resistance. This time, Tajikistan has again become a sanctuary for resistance leaders.
Ahmad Massoud, the son of the legendary mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud and leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, is in Tajikistan, his spokesman said this week, seeking to drum up international support.
But unlike the last time, the resistance has almost no holdouts in Afghanistan, and Tajikistan’s government has shown little appetite for assisting beyond offering shelter.
Before Kabul fell, Tajikistan said it could take in 100,000 Afghan refugees, but now it’s closed to new entries. Several thousand Afghans did manage to arrive, including 160 U.S.-trained Afghan Air Force Pilots, who are now trapped waiting evacuation.
Those who did reach Tajikistan are now struggling, unable to find work or feed themselves in one of the world’s poorest countries. Tamim Talash, a former official at Afghanistan’s election commission, is now stranded there with his wife and 4-month old daughter.
“We have a lot of problems,” Talash said. “I am jobless now.”
Talash, who said the Taliban twice tried to kill him, has applied for asylum in the U.S. but heard nothing so far.
“I don’t know how to find out any person or any organization to help us,” he added.
The upheaval in Afghanistan has also boosted Russia’s role in the region, where it already retains a strong grip on former Soviet colonies. Worried about potential terrorists in those countries, Russia has been moving to bolster them.
Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, already is home to Russia’s 201st Military Base, the largest it has anywhere in the world outside Russia.
Since the summer, Russia has sent to Tajikistan military equipment and money to construct new border posts and re-equip military forces. The countries have staged large joint military exercises. In October, Russia took journalists to watch the culminating display of scheduled exercises organized by the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a military alliance of former Soviet countries.
Russian troops took part alongside those from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Belarus and others at a firing range about 15 miles from Afghanistan. The display, involving around 2,000 troops, simulated a response to an imagined attempt by an Islamist group that had crossed into Tajikistan and declared it an Islamic state.
But Moscow also is building a working relationship with the Taliban. Last month, it hosted the Taliban in Moscow for talks with regional countries, chaired by Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.
Russia has asked for, and received, public guarantees from the Taliban that it will not destabilize Central Asian countries like Tajikistan or allow Afghanistan to be used as a launchpad for international terrorism again.
“Just as we want positive relations with others, we also seek positive relations,” Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban’s acting foreign minister, told reporters through a translator during the Moscow talks. “We remain committed to our commitments that the soil of Afghanistan will not be used to threaten the security of other nations.”
(GLASGOW, Scotland) — Eshrat Waris called just attending the COP26 climate summit and meeting Prince William in Glasgow, Scotland, this week an “out of body experience.” Being handed 1 million pounds for her Earthshot Prize-winning invention took it to another level.
“The fact that we’re in the room means that — I hope to God — they unlock that money because there are solutions like the 15 Earthshot finalists have shown,” Waris told ABC News. “But that financing that has been promised since Paris, I hope to God in Glasgow gets delivered and unlocked for all of us because these solutions are going to be game-changers.”
The 34-year-old from Bangladesh was one of five winners of the prince’s inaugural Earthshot Prize, each of whom received 1 million pounds, or about $1.38 million, in financial support. All 15 finalists received some funding to scale their climate change solutions.
Waris won the award for a smartmeter that allows people to sell excess solar energy developed by SOLshare where she is the director of product and business development.
Sam Teicher, from winner Coral Vita, echoed Waris’ emotions, saying, “It’s the honor of my life that Prince William knows our company, knows our name.”
Acknowledging the global scale of COP26, Olugbenga Olubanjo, a winner from Nigeria, told ABC News, “I’m very sure it’s going to unlock opportunities for us. … It sets us on the global stage.”
The three winners who spoke to ABC News were optimistic and determined to bring climate change to an end.
“Failure is not an option when it comes to solving for climate change,” Teicher said.
He also pointed to the world’s response to the pandemic as an example of the power we harness to create change.
“You saw during the COVID lockdowns that governments can unlock incredible amounts of funding to restructure societies,” Teicher said. “So the argument that there’s not enough money to fund climate change action is now underscored by the fact that the cost of inaction is so much greater than paying the bill right now, while then also creating all these opportunities through new solutions.”
And while the group said it was humbled and honored to be working with Prince William, the winners said they were also amazed by Prince Charles.
“We had the opportunity to meet Prince Charles the other night, and I honestly was very surprised and pleasantly blown away by how much this man knows,” Waris said.
“He got so excited,” Waris added. “He was actually grabbing the CEOs and saying, ‘Hey, come over here. Like, these guys, like, you need to finance them right now.'”
The finalists and winners met for the first time in person and were featured at a leaders’ event on Tuesday where William gave a speech.
The youngest finalist, 15-year-old Vinisha Umashankar from Tamil Nadu, India, joined the prince on stage and addressed world leaders including President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I’m not just a girl from India, I’m a girl from Earth,” Umashankar said.
Umashankar reached the final rounds of the prize for her invention, which replaces India’s traditional charcoal-powered roaming ironing carts with ones powered by solar energy.
“We won’t wait for you to act,” Umashankar added in her speech, earning her a standing ovation. “We will lead even if you don’t. We will act even if you delay.”
(GLASGOW, Scotland) — Leaders from nearly every country in the world have converged upon Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference that experts are touting as the most important environmental summit in history.
The conference, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed as the check-in for the progress countries are making after entering the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, a value that would be disastrous to exceed, according to climate scientists. More ambitious efforts aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Not one country is going into COP26 on track to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, according to experts. They will need to work together to find collective solutions that will drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
“We need to move from commitments into action,” Jim Harmon, chairman of the World Resources Institute, told ABC News. “The path to a better future is still possible, but time is running out.”
All eyes will be on the biggest emitters: China, the U.S. and India. While China is responsible for about 26% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all other developed countries combined, the cumulative emissions from the U.S. over the past century are likely twice that of China’s, David Sandalow, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told ABC News.
Here’s how the conference is developing. All times Eastern:
Nov 04, 8:10 am
US needs to ‘get in the game’ on clean energy transitions, energy secretary say
The U.S. needs to lead by example in the clean energy transition and leaders should jump at the chance to scale up new technology to stay competitive on the global stage, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told ABC News.
As the “richest country in the world” and one of the biggest polluters, it will be incumbent upon Americans to “do our part,” Granholm told ABC News’ Maggie Rulli on Thursday.
“If you’re a businessperson, you want to be able to get in the game,” Granholm said. “And in the United States, we don’t want our economic competitors getting those jobs, getting those businesses. We want to be able to create it in the United States for our people to work.”
Granholm, the former governor of Michigan, said governors from states that have relied heavily on one fossil fuel industry, such as coal or oil and gas, should prioritize creating clean energy jobs for workers, adding that there are opportunities in clean energy, such as geothermal power, that use the same set of skills.
“If you’re a governor, you don’t want people moving to a new state,” she said. “They want to be able to create those opportunities inside of your state, and every single state in the United States has something to offer as a competitive advantage in clean energy.”
Nov 04, 7:34 am
Dozens of countries promise to phase out coal
A coalition of 190 countries and organizations have agreed to commit to the end of coal power at COP26, a potentially major step toward limiting global temperature increases.
Major coal-using countries such as Poland and Vietnam have committed to phasing out the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel for the first time, the U.K. government announced Wednesday night.
The coalition has committed to ending all investment in new coal power generation both domestically and internationally, rapidly scale up deployment of clean power generation, phase out coal power for major economies in the 2030s and the rest of the world by the 2040s and make a transition away from coal power in a way that benefits workers and communities.
China, Japan and Korea, the three largest public financiers of goal, have already committed to ending overseas finance for goal generation by the end of 2021.
Nov 03, 8:04 pm
Global carbon emissions set to rise after 2020’s COVID-induced reduction
Carbon emissions are on track to return to pre-COVID levels after dropping by 5.4% in 2020, according to the 16th annual Global Carbon Budget prepared by the Global Carbon Project.
Researchers from University of Exeter, University of East Anglia, CICERO and Stanford University found that coal and gas emissions are set to grow more in 2021 than they fell in 2020.
While all major emitters – U.S., China, India and the EU27 – are seeing a rise in emissions by a minimum of 4% in 2021, India and China are set to beat their respective 2019 emission levels.
“Investments in the green economy in post-COVID recovery plans of some countries have been insufficient so far, on their own, to avoid a substantial return close to pre-COVID emissions,” study leader Pierre Friedlingstein, who holds a chair in Mathematical Modelling of the Climate System at the University of Exeter, said.
Looking ahead, Friedlingstein said, “To achieve net-zero by 2050, we must cut emissions every year by an amount comparable to that seen during COVID.”
(CARNARVON, Australia) — A 36-year-old man is now in custody following the rescue of missing 4-year-old Cleo Smith, who disappeared 18 days ago while camping with her family, the Western Australia Police Force announced during a press conference.
Police said they received a tip Tuesday that led to a suburban home in Carnarvon, Australia, where they broke in and found Cleo around 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning.
“When she said, ‘My name is Cleo,’ I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house,” Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch said Wednesday, while describing the girl’s words to the police officers. “To see Cleo rescued this morning, I’m speechless.”
He added that many detectives were “openly crying with relief.”
Blanch confirmed that Cleo has since been reunited with her parents and that the suspect in custody is currently being questioned by detectives.
Cleo’s mother, Ellie Smith, said, “Our family is whole again,” in a post on social media.
Cleo went missing on Oct. 16 after she disappeared from the tent she was sleeping in with her parents at a popular camping site north of Carnarvon.
Despite the state government offering a 1 million Australian dollar reward — equivalent to $743,000 — five days after Cleo went missing, Blanch said the money is not expected to be claimed.
“This is the outcome we all hoped and prayed for. It’s the outcome we’ve achieved because of some incredible police work,” Blanch said. “I want to thank Cleo’s parents, the Western Australian community and the many volunteers.”
(WASHINGTON) — China is rapidly increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal and could have as many as 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to a new Pentagon report released Wednesday.
The development comes on the heels of China’s recent test of a hypersonic weapon that has raised serious concerns about China’s military buildup and its growing capability.
“The accelerating pace of the PRC’s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC (People’s Republic of China) to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027,” said this year’s version of the annual Pentagon report formally known as “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.”
“The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020,” it added. That increase is dramatically different than was projected in last year’s version of the report which predicted a doubling of China’s current nuclear arsenal of several hundred warheads.
Even with China’s dramatic increase, it’s larger nuclear arsenal will still be much less than the United States’ declared stockpile of 3,750 warheads capable of being deployed by hundreds of land-based and sea-launched missiles and a strategic bomber fleet.
In recent months, the growth of China’s nuclear force has been captured by commercial satellite images showing the construction of hundreds of missile silos at three locations in northern and western China.
“New developments in 2020 further suggest that the PRC intends to increase the peacetime readiness of its nuclear forces by moving to a launch-on-warning (LOW) posture with an expanded silo-based force,” said the report.
China’s leaders have publicly stated that they want China’s military become a global power by 2050 as they move beyond what is currently assessed to be a military force with only regional capabilities.
The report indicated China’s growth of its military capabilities are in line with that plan noting that they “continue to strengthen the PRC’s ability to “fight and win wars” against a “strong enemy” [a likely euphemism for the United States], coerce Taiwan and rival claimants in territorial disputes, counter an intervention by a third party in a conflict along the PRC’s periphery, and project power globally.”
That growing military capability was demonstrated recently after reports emerged that over the summer China had tested a new hypersonic glide weapon capable of orbiting the earth that could eventually carry a nuclear weapon.
The development of a “fractional orbital bombardment system” raised concerns about how the United States could counter such a system that could conceivably travel at hypersonic speeds, or greater than five times the speed of sound, after reentering the atmosphere.
Like other hypersonic vehicles it would be hard to track because the glide vehicles are maneuverable in the atmosphere, unlike ballistic warheads that follow a fixed trajectory, meaning they could weave their way around American radars and ground-based interceptor missile systems.
“The U.S. does not currently have the ability to even track this weapon, much less defeat it,” said Steve Ganyard, a retired Marine colonel and ABC News contributor who noted that American radars pointing to the Cold War threat of missiles coming over the North Pole would not be in a position to detect a hypersonic weapon coming from the south.
Earlier on Wednesday, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that China’s recent test of an apparent hypersonic weapon capable of delivering a nuclear warhead was “very significant,” but “not a Sputnik moment,” at least in terms of novelty.
That term refers to the 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union that caught Americans off guard and led the United States to play catch up leading to a space and arms race.
“They’re not new, they’ve been around for a while. So, in that limited, narrow sense, it’s not a Sputnik moment, because Sputnik was new at the time,” Milley said in comments at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington, D.C.
Last week, Milley was the first American official to publicly confirm the test labeling it “a very significant technological event” but also said he didn’t know “if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that.”
Milley described the test as part of the larger trend by China to be a bigger player on the international stage.
“If you look at the totality, this test that occurred a couple weeks ago is only one of a much, much broader picture of a military capability with respect to the Chinese,” said Milley. “That is very, very significant. We’re witnessing, in my view, we’re witnessing one of the largest shifts in global geostrategic power at the world has witnessed.”
Recent flight activity near Taiwan has once again raised concerns about whether China is poising to launch military action against the island it considers to be a breakaway province.
Asked if he believed that China is likely to invade Taiwan, Milley replied, “Based on my analysis of China, I don’t think that is likely in the next near future,” a time period he defined as meaning over the next six to 24 months.
“Having said that, though, the Chinese are clearly and unambiguously building the capability to provide those options to the national leadership if they so choose at some point in the future,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program will resume on Nov. 29, Iran’s top negotiator and the European Union’s senior diplomat coordinating previous rounds announced Wednesday.
The announcement comes amid high tensions over Tehran’s growing nuclear stockpile and advancing capabilities, with pressure growing on President Joe Biden to consider a “Plan B.”
If they go ahead as scheduled, the indirect talks will be the first meetings in over five months and the first under the new government of the more hard-line conservative president, Ebrahim Raisi, who was elected in June.
The U.S. and Iran have still not met directly but instead held six previous rounds of negotiations through intermediaries, the remaining parties to the Obama-era nuclear deal — China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom.
While there’s finally a date on the books, critics still contend that Iran is simply buying time as it continues to build out its nuclear program.
Key questions about negotiations remain. In particular, where they will start — from the beginning again, or from where the previous rounds with the last Iranian government left off? And will Iran continue to demand the U.S. acts first by granting sanctions relief — citing former President Donald Trump’s exit from the original agreement?
The Biden administration has said repeatedly it wants a “mutual return to compliance,” in which the U.S. lifts sanctions as Iran scales back the steps it took in violation of the deal. Starting one year after Trump’s exit, Iran began its own violations, such as enriching more uranium to higher levels, using more advanced centrifuges and more of them.
European allies have joined the U.S. in expressing growing concern about those steps and the months of delay since Iran’s presidential election in June.
In a joint statement Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson joined Biden in condemning the “accelerated… pace of provocative nuclear steps” by Iran, including enriching uranium metal and enriching uranium to 60%.
“Iran has no credible civilian need for either measure, but both are important to nuclear weapons programs,” they warned.
But they added they continue to hope for a diplomatic solution, saying, “We are convinced that it is possible to quickly reach and implement an understanding on return to full compliance and to ensure for the long term that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes.”
It’s unclear if Raisi’s government is on the same page. Iran’s new top negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, tweeted Wednesday that Iran “agreed to start the negotiations aiming at removal of unlawful & inhumane sanctions” — perhaps a sign that talks will have to start over instead of resume where they left off.
But the State Department was quick to reject that. Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters Wednesday if talks “are to succeed, if we are to close the remaining areas of disagreement, they should start precisely where the sixth round of talks left off… It would be neither productive nor wise to take up from any other position.”
Critics say Iran’s nuclear program is already too far advanced to keep the nuclear deal alive. But Price added again that the Biden administration still believes “there is a window in which we can achieve a mutual return to compliance” — in part, he said, because there’s a “relatively small number of issues that remained outstanding” when talks were last held in June.
The in-person meetings will again be coordinated by the EU’s senior diplomat, Enrique Mora, in Vienna, the Austrian capital. U.S. special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, will lead the U.S. delegation, according to Price — meeting all the parties except Iran, which refuses to sit down with the Americans.
(GLASGOW, Scotland) — Leaders from nearly every country in the world have converged upon Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference that experts are touting as the most important environmental summit in history.
The conference, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed as the check-in for the progress countries are making after entering the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, a value that would be disastrous to exceed, according to climate scientists. More ambitious efforts aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Not one country is going into COP26 on track to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, according to experts. They will need to work together to find collective solutions that will drastically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
“We need to move from commitments into action,” Jim Harmon, chairman of the World Resources Institute, told ABC News. “The path to a better future is still possible, but time is running out.”
All eyes will be on the biggest emitters: China, the U.S. and India. While China is responsible for about 26% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, more than all other developed countries combined, the cumulative emissions from the U.S. over the past century are likely twice that of China’s, David Sandalow, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told ABC News.
Here’s how the conference is developing. All times Eastern:
Nov 03, 7:33 am
New climate targets announced for sports worldwide
The United Nations has announced a number of ambitious emissions reduction targets as part of its Sports for Climate Action Framework.
The goals include reaching net zero by 2040 and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030.
Organizations such as the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, Athletics Kenya, BBC Sport, the Premier League, Formula E and Munster Rugby have signed up for the new targets.
Moreover, signatories will submit plans on how to implement these targets as well as report on overall progress each year.
“Four years since we launched the Sports for Climate Action Framework, more than 280 sports organizations have committed to the overarching objectives of aligning sport with the goals of the Paris Agreement,” U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said Wednesday.
Nov 02, 3:59 pm
‘America showed up,’ Biden says of time at summit
Biden said the U.S. was able to make “real progress” at COP26 on methane reduction and reforestation strategies, including convincing countries on “the sideline” to commit to ambitious goals in those arenas as well.
Biden criticized China, the world’s biggest emitter, and Russia for failing to show up in Glasgow.
“The rest of the world is going to look to China and say…are they providing?” Biden said. “And they’ve lost the ability to influence people around the world and all the people here at COP.”
When asked by a reporter how he would respond to “skeptical” and “angry” protesters at the conference, Biden said, “I think anyone who cares about the environment should be worried.”
“There’s a reason for people to be worried,” he said. “I’m worried.”
Biden continued, “But I’m optimistic….what I feel is that the populations of each of our countries have a different perspective that they did at COP25.”
Biden added that people are starting to recognize the disasters that have been exacerbated by climate change, such as deadly flooding from hurricanes and wildfires burning in the western U.S., which has been experiencing a megadrought.
“I think there’s a whole different attitude,” Biden said.
Nov 02, 3:44 pm
Biden, Prince Charles meet at summit
Although not a part of his official schedule, Biden met with Prince Charles at COP26, a senior administration official said.
Biden spoke on the importance of collaboration between the two nations.
“They underlined the need for ambitious commitments and concrete actions among partners worldwide and discussed Prince Charles’ initiatives to engage the private sector on sustainability,” the official said.
Biden thanked the U.K. for hosting COP26 and commended the royal family and Charles’ dedication to environmental activism over the past 50 years.
Nov 02, 3:11 pm
‘No doubt’ progress has been made over past 2 days, Boris Johnson says
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the energy in Glasgow is different than six years ago when the Paris Agreement was signed.
At COP26, world leaders are starting to “tick the boxes” on how to reduce emissions, Johnson said, adding that he now has “no doubt” that progress has been made over the last two days.
“There was no road map, there was no very clear sense of how you could do it,” he said of the Paris Agreement. “I think what you’re starting to see here, in COP26 in Glasgow, is a sense of how actually you can deliver those cuts.”
But the world leaders must also guard against false hope, he added.Johnson said he understands that leaders from developing countries don’t have the same “cautious optimism,” admitting that “in the remaining days of this COP we have a lot more to do.”
(NEW YORK) — The Maldives are well known as a bucket list getaway. Hearing the country’s name conjures up images of luxury huts overlooking an aqua blue ocean. But climate change may cross the country off the map completely.
The archipelago, which is made up of over 1,100 coral islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is the lowest lying nation in the world. Therefore, sea level rise caused by global climate change is an existential threat to the island nation. At the current rate of global warming, almost 80% of the Maldives could become uninhabitable by 2050, according to multiple reports from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.
“Our islands are slowly being inundated by the sea, one by one,” Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, the president of the Maldives, told the U.N. Climate Change Conference, or COP26, earlier this week. “If we do not reverse this trend, the Maldives will cease to exist by the end of this century.”
The islands that are home to local Maldivians, not the resort islands, stand to lose the most. Mohammed Nasheed, the former president of the Maldives and a leading voice for climate change equity, told ABC News that more than 90% of islands in the Maldives have severe erosion, and 97% of the country no longer has fresh groundwater.
Ibrahim Mubbasir and his family live on the island of Dhiffushi. It is suffering from severe erosion, and flooding has increased from two or three times a year to twice a month. Four years ago, the family’s well became unusable because of salt water contamination, leaving them to rely on collecting rainwater. Mubbasir said they only have enough fresh water to last for three more months.
“Things that we thought would happen towards the end of the century, we are experiencing now,” Aminath Shauna, the Maldives’ minister of environment, climate change and technology, told ABC News’ Ginger Zee.
Shauna said that more than 50% of the national budget is spent on adapting to climate change. When asked what the Maldives will look like in 2050, Shauna responded, “Are you willing to take the Maldives as climate refugees? I think that’s the conversation that needs to happen.”
And it’s not just the Maldives. Island countries around the world have been asking developed nations for funds since 2009. Countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions — China, the United States and India — are mostly responsible for the rapid sea level rise.
Maldives’ coral reefs
At the center of the Maldives’ culture are their coral reefs.
In 2016, the Maldives lost their front line of defense when a bleaching event affected about 60% of the coral reefs, according to Aya Naseem, a marine biologist and co-founder of the Maldives Coral Institute.
Without coral reefs, the islands are wide open to the rising waters. Naseem said they have one realistic choice: They need to build back and protect the reefs, “because IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) is predicting that by 2050 if the temperature rises 1.5 degrees Celsius we can lose 70 to 90% of corals in the whole world.”
Research has previously shown that a healthy coral reef can absorb 97% of wave energy, dramatically reducing erosion, and it’s affordable, Naseem said.
“It’s much cheaper than building a seawall. I think it costs something like $3,000 to grow a meter of sea wall where for the coral a meter of it is about $300, including monitoring and everything,” she said.
Bebe Ahmed, founder of “Save the Beach,” travels island to island in the Maldives with the mission of teaching kids about restoring and protecting coral. He told ABC News that his dream is to inspire young Maldivians to want to start their own projects to restore coral reefs.
What’s next in the fight?
Technology, like 3D-printed coral structures or a floating city, may have to be part of the solution.
The Maldives is home to the Modular Artificial Reef Structure, or MARS, a coral-forming project on the resort island of Summer Island. to the coral forming project, MARS. The project has 3D-printed bases that are placed in the water with transplant corals attached to them. The hope is that the system is designed with the specific needs of the coral farm in mind, providing a permanent structure for coral to grow.
In the late ’90s, the Maldives began construction on the island of Hulhumale through the process of land reclamation. Hulhumale is 6.5 feet above sea level, more than double the height of Male, the current capital of the Maldives. It is possible this island may be a future site for relocation of Maldivians suffering from sea level rise. Maldivians call their manmade island the City of Hope.
The future of the Maldives could also come in the form of a floating city. In 2022, just a few miles from the dense, capital city of Male, construction and assembly will begin on the world’s first true floating city. The unique solution will not have to worry about sea level rise, because it will always be on top of the sea.
The project is being developed and led by Dutch Docklands in the Netherlands. Lead architect Koen Olthuis gave ABC News an inside look at how the floating city is designed and what it should eventually look like.
The floating city has a unique pattern, modeled after the brain, both human and coral.
The entire city will shift up and down on a pile drilled into the sea floor. It will also take advantage of its environment to better provide for those living on the floating city.
“By being on the water we want to take advantage of the water — and using the coolness of the water — so these are water-cooled cities, for which you take cool water outside the atoll and pump water through the route and activate the air conditioning systems,” Olthius said.
Since the floating city is sustainable and leaves no footprint, Olthuis called the floating cities “scarless” and said they are “renting space from nature.”
(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is ending Ethiopia’s special trade status under U.S. law — the latest penalty imposed on the Ethiopian government amid its ongoing war with the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, the regional force that once controlled the federal government.
The decision, announced Tuesday by the White House, comes amid an expansion in the conflict, which has its anniversary Wednesday. The U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa warned it could spill out into a wider civil war, threatening even more suffering for the Ethiopian people and more instability in the region.
To halt that expansion and push both sides to negotiate, the administration has prepared targeted U.S. sanctions against figures on all sides, according to two sources familiar with the plans.
The State Department has also prepared a declaration that the Ethiopian government’s atrocities against Tigrayans constitute a genocide, both sources said, although it’s unclear whether Secretary of State Antony Blinken will sign it and when.
A State Department spokesperson declined to speak to a possible genocide declaration, but told ABC News they are “deeply alarmed by the continuing violence in northern Ethiopia” and “undertaking a review of available facts to assess whether atrocity crimes have been committed.”
Every side in the conflict was been accused of atrocities, including rape and sexual assault, executions, displacement and the destruction of hospitals, farms and food stores.
On Nov. 3, 2020, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a campaign against Tigrayan forces after weeks of tension over regional elections and years of animosity. The TPLF, the Tigray region’s powerful political party and military force, dominated Ethiopian politics for decades until Abiy’s election in 2018.
Federal troops under Abiy were joined by forces from the neighboring country Eritrea, also long at odds with Tigrayan forces, and the neighboring region Amhara — a regional conflict that soon escalated ethnic tensions across Africa’s second most populous country and among its diaspora around the world.
The Biden administration has tried to use diplomatic tools to ease tensions and urge negotiations, deploying visa restrictions against officials in May and launching a sanctions regime in September without targeting any officials just yet.
While those first sanctions could come soon, it’s the suspension of Ethiopia’s trade status under the African Growth and Opportunity Act on Tuesday that marked a new step. In a message to Congress, President Joe Biden said Ethiopia’s “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights” made it ineligible for AGOA under the law.
The suspension is required under U.S. law, but it is also seen as another warning shot across Abiy’s bow — with a potentially strong economic impact on the country, which exports between $100 million and $200 million to the U.S. each year, according to various estimates.
But it won’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2022, so Ethiopia can still reverse the decision before its implementation, according to Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, U.S. special envoy for the Horn of Africa.
“It’s not too late to retrace our steps toward the path not taken, but the change in direction must occur in days, not weeks,” he said Tuesday.
Events on the ground, however, show the war is heading in the opposite direction. Abiy’s government declared a national state of emergency Tuesday amid concern that the Tigrayan Defense Forces may move on the capital Addis Ababa after seizing towns just 160 miles to the northeast, according to the Associated Press.
Ethiopia’s Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration criticized the Biden administration’s decision, saying that it was “extremely disappointed” and that the move will “reverse significant economic gains in our country and unfairly impact and harm women and children.”
“We urge the United States to support our ongoing efforts to restore peace and the rule of law — not punish our people for confronting an insurgent force that is attempting to bring down our democratically elected government,” it added in a statement.
But Feltman made clear the U.S. sees Abiy’s government as part of the problem here, in particular because its “unconscionable” blockade on the Tigray region since June has led to shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and cash. Some 900,000 people are facing famine-like conditions in the region, according to U.S. estimates.
The United Nations has estimated that 2,000 trucks of aid are needed per month to deal with the humanitarian crisis, but just 1,100 trucks have entered in total since the beginning of July — 13% of what’s required — per Feltman.
“Without question, the most serious obstacles are intentional government delays and denials,” he added during remarks at the U.S. Institute of Peace. “This unfortunately suggests an intentional effort by the authorities to deprive Ethiopians who are suffering of life-saving assistance. … No government should be adopting policies or allowing practices that result in mass starvation of its citizens.”
Feltman was also quick, however, to condemn the TPLF, especially for its “unacceptable” offensives into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions that have worsened the humanitarian situation. He urged them not to march on Addis, too.
That delicate balance — calling out each side without appearing to take sides — may have hampered the U.S. response to this fast-evolving conflict. In June, the then-top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Robert Godec, told Congress the State Department was conducting a review for a genocide determination.
“We have this fact and law-based review underway. We have pushed it at a very accelerated pace, and it is far advanced. The Secretary needs to make a decision, and when he’s ready, I’m sure that will happen,” acting Assistant Secretary Godec told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a statement.
Since then, however, there has been no determination. That’s in part, according to one source, because of U.S. concerns about Tigrayan Defense Forces’ atrocities since it launched counter-offensives in June — and about a perception in Addis that the U.S. supports the group over the federal government.
Feltman declined to speak to a genocide determination Tuesday, but he rejected that perception forcefully.
“This could not be further from the truth. We have consistently condemned the TPLF’s expansion of the war outside Tigray, and we continue to call on the TPLF to withdraw from Afar and Amhara,” he said.
The UN human rights office will issue a joint report with the Ethiopian government’s human rights commission on Wednesday — the only official investigation into possible war crimes that Abiy’s government has allowed, although it has already been accused of trying to limit the report, according to the Associated Press.
Feltman said the U.S. would look to the report as it makes its own determinations about possible war crimes or genocide, adding, “The Ethiopian people who have suffered are going to want to see some kind of justice, some kind of reckoning for the horrors that they’ve been through because of this needless conflict, and we will be looking to encourage the type of accountability and justice that the Ethiopian people have every right to expect.”
He was clearer that the U.S. has sanctions ready to go against figures from each side: “The United States is prepared to pursue the first sanctions… against those fueling this crisis and obstructing humanitarian operations, and we will be targeting all parties implicated,” he said.
To date, the U.S. has only sanctioned Eritrea’s top military official, Gen. Filipos Woldeyohannes, for his forces’ human rights abuses. Feltman said Tuesday Eritrean troops have played an “extremely damaging and destructive role” and are responsible for “some of the absolute worst, most horrifying human rights violations.”
But it’s unclear what kind of impact these diplomatic tools will have on either side. While Feltman said the conflict will end in talks no matter what — and the leaders should spare the Ethiopian people by talking now — it seems clear from the continued blockade and the TPLF offensive that each side still believes they can win a military victory.
