Sabtu, 12 Desember 2020

Climate change: ‘the Paris goals are within reach’ - Financial Times

There are very few things that unite Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron these days — but climate change is one of them. The two leaders of the UK and France, who are spending the weekend deadlocked in painful last-ditch, Brexit negotiations, are also co-hosting a virtual climate summit on Saturday.

Amid the gloom of the coronavirus crisis and the geopolitical sniping it has prompted, the summit is likely to be a surprising success: the leaders of more than 70 countries have made new pledges in recent weeks and months to reduce emissions.

The event will even be attended by President Xi Jinping of China who earlier this year said China, the world’s biggest emitter, would become carbon-neutral by 2060.

It has been exactly five years since the signing of the Paris climate accord, an idealistic pact in which 189 countries agreed to limit global warming to well below 2C, hopefully around 1.5C. For most of the past five years, that goal has seemed very far out of reach. Squabbling nations struggled to agree on many of the rules of the agreement; global emissions kept rising; and the world’s second-biggest emitter, the US, withdrew from the pact entirely.

Meanwhile the planet has been getting hotter — the past six years have been the six warmest on record — and wildfires, hurricanes and heatwaves have intensified. As recently as last year, the UN secretary-general warned that the world was on track for at least 3C of warming by the end of the century, far off track from the Paris target.

The natural disasters that marked 2020, from devastating wildfires in California, to heatwaves across Siberia, are likely to come again
The natural disasters that marked 2020, from devastating wildfires in California, to heatwaves across Siberia, are likely to come again © Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty

But now the tone has shifted — and so has the prognosis for the planet. Amid the cheerleading remarks at the summit on Saturday, there has also been a decisive acceleration in national climate pledges, and legally binding carbon targets, that has helped to push down the planet’s warming trajectory, according to scientists.

During the past few months, China, Japan and South Korea have all announced targets of net zero emissions by the middle of the century. The election of Joe Biden, who has said he wants the US to reach zero carbon electricity by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2050, puts the US on a similar course. By the time Mr Biden steps into the White House in January, most of the world’s big economies, including the EU and UK, will have some form of net zero target in place — if the US is counted, some 63 per cent of global emissions are now covered by these goals.

Could this be a turning point? Some scientists think it is. “If all these countries meet their long-term targets of net zero, then the Paris agreement goals are within reach again,” says Niklas Höhne, professor of environmental systems at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Warming of 2.1C is now likely by the end of the century — much lower than seemed likely only a few years ago, according to analysis he has done with colleagues at the NewClimate Institute and at Climate Analytics, both non-profit research groups.

That 2.1C trajectory holds true only if every country that has announced a zero emissions goal — more than 120 nations have done so — achieves it on time, and if the US adopts a similar target. If countries are judged on their actual current policies, rather than future ambitions, the forecast looks less rosy.

That 2.1C forecast is also the lowest ever produced by the non-profit groups, which has been tracking climate pledges and temperature projections since 2009. Back then, they projected that existing pledges — mostly made under the Kyoto protocol — put the world on track for 3.5C of warming.

The IEA predicts that renewables will soon overtake coal as a source of electricity generation
The IEA predicts that renewables will soon overtake coal as a source of electricity generation © David Gray/Bloomberg

“The game-changer was China really moving into net zero, and that created a whole domino effect of others joining in,” says Prof Höhne. “For me that is the biggest impact of the Paris agreement so far.”

Others agree. “I think the 2C target now looks like it might be possible, whereas frankly previously, a lot of us were pretty cynical about it being possible,” says Chris Rapley, professor of climate science at University College London.

The coronavirus pandemic has helped to speed this along, inadvertently. Global emissions have dropped 6.7 per cent this year, the biggest absolute decline recorded outside of wartime. While that may be a temporary blip, with emissions expected to bounce back soon, the economic recovery programmes under way will help channel hundreds of billions of dollars towards green projects.

In other ways the pandemic has been less helpful, including by delaying the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow to next year. Governments have had their hands full with the health emergency, leaving less bandwidth to focus on the climate emergency. And public pressures to act on climate have been reduced in some areas: lockdowns have forced young environmental activists — who took to the streets in the millions in 2019, following the lead of Greta Thunberg — to stay at home. Their online protests are less visible, but every bit as angry.

Governments are not the only force driving emissions cuts, however. Big leaps in green technology, and new corporate commitments, have also helped generate a tailwind behind the Paris agreement. Several chief executives, including Apple’s Tim Cook, joined the summit at the weekend, underscoring the role that company climate pledges have played to help move things along.

The cost of producing energy from renewables, such as the solar power generated by the Yamakura Dam plant in Ichihara, Japan, is dropping.
The cost of producing energy from renewables, such as the solar power generated by the Yamakura Dam plant in Ichihara, Japan, is dropping. © Carl Court/Getty Images

Adair Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, says there is a self-reinforcing cycle, between technology, companies and governments, with each feeding into each other.

“That actually shows the power of the Paris process. Because at one level you can say, the Paris process isn’t a legally binding agreement. It is a political commitment to be part of some comparative process — you do this, I’ll do that. But actually, it is working, and it is working because of the technology process as well,” he said.

Maintaining ambition

When the Paris agreement was signed five years ago, it was far from obvious the deal would succeed. Designed as a good faith agreement, with no enforcement mechanisms to punish bad actors, the pact allows countries to set their own climate targets, known as NDCs or “nationally determined contributions”, at whatever level they choose. The goal of limiting warming to below 2C was expected to be extremely difficult and expensive to achieve, even by those who supported it.

Attaining the goals of the Paris agreement is “do-able, but only if we treat it like the urgent crisis as it is, the war that it is”, John Kerry, the former US secretary of state and recently appointed special envoy on climate for the incoming administration, said in a 2019 speech.

In the years after the Paris accord came into force, global emissions ticked up to record levels. President Donald Trump announced in 2017 that he was withdrawing from the deal, and similar sentiments have been expressed by Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and by the Scott Morrison administration in Australia (though neither Brazil nor Australia formally pulled out). Meanwhile China, the world’s biggest emitter, declined until recently to set a carbon reduction target, saying only that it would peak emissions before 2030.

The co-operative ideals on which the pact was based were in short supply. “It felt like we had lost it for four years,” says Rémy Rioux, who was one of the lead French negotiators for the Paris accord, and is now the head of the French Development Agency. “The way we lived it for the last five years, was some sort of ‘resistance’,” he says, explaining that it had been a “fight” to keep up the ambition of the climate accord in the face of opposition from countries such as the US.

From left: executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres, secretary general of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon, foreign affairs minister and president-designate of COP21 Laurent Fabius, and France’s president Francois Hollande raise hands together after adoption of the global warming pact at the COP21 Climate Conference in Le Bourget, north of Paris, in December 2015
From left: executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, French foreign minister and president-designate of COP21 Laurent Fabius, and France’s president François Hollande raise hands together after adoption of the global warming pact at the COP21 Climate Conference in Paris in December 2015 © Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty

Recently that has all changed though. “Somehow the stars are aligning again. With the green new deal in Europe, with the election in the US, and with the Chinese pledge in September . . . We are probably entering a new phase, where multilateralism will regain momentum,” says Mr Rioux.

It is not only political winds that have shifted dramatically in the past three months: the world has also changed profoundly in the years since the Paris agreement was signed.

Clean energy is much cheaper than it was then, and the pace of the energy transition has taken many by surprise. The combination of technological progress, along with increasing knowledge about the damage caused by climate change, has helped to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels.

In the past five years — since the Paris accord was signed — sales of electric vehicles have quadrupled, from 572,000 in 2015, to 2.3m in 2020, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency. Renewables accounted for 90 per cent of new installed power capacity this year, up from 50 per cent in 2015. Global demand for coal, which has been sinking since 2013, has plummeted this year during the coronavirus recession.

The IEA predicts that renewables will soon overtake coal as a source of electricity generation, largely due to the fact that the cost of wind and solar has fallen so much. “In 2025, renewables are set to become the largest source of electricity generation worldwide, ending coal’s five decades as the top power provider,” said IEA head Fatih Birol.

And putting a price on carbon pollution, once seen as a pipe dream, is becoming more common. Prices hit a record high last week for carbon pollution permits in the EU.

In the past five years, sales of electric vehicles have quadrupled, from 572,000 in 2015, to 2.3m in 2020, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency
In the past five years, sales of electric vehicles have quadrupled, from 572,000 in 2015, to 2.3m in 2020, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency © David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

In addition to progress on clean energy, advancements in climate science in the last several years have also lent urgency to climate policies. The latest modelling suggests the earth has already warmed by about 1.2C compared with the pre-industrial era, and has a one-in-five chance of temporarily passing the 1.5C mark by 2024, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

One thing scientists have been able to observe is that carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere up to a century after it is released, which means the warming impact of past emissions continues for a long time.

“The climate system has a lot of inbuilt lags, so to some extent we have already determined what the temperature will be in 2030 and 2040,” says Prof Rapley. “There is a lot of reason to believe that, whatever you do in the next few years, the temperature is going to go past 1.5C in the next few decades.”

Pledges and policies

That is cause for concern, and one of the reasons why the next few years will be critical for determining the planet’s temperature trajectory. Despite all the recent announcements, there is still a yawning gap between countries’ 2050 targets, and the policies that they have put in place to cover the next several years.

The countries that signed the Paris accord have all committed, in theory, to submit new climate targets to the UN by the end of this year. Many of those targets were announced at the weekend’s climate summit — including the EU’s, which was agreed on Friday. But coronavirus has delayed many other announcements, and the UN has said it will keep the door open for further pledges that trickle in next year.

As those pledges arrive, the proof will be in their implementation. Prof Höhne says that if countries are measured on their current policies alone, ignoring their long-term goals, the temperature projection for the end of the century rises to around 2.9C.

Protesters outside the White House in Washington, DC, after President Donald Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change accord in 2017
Protesters outside the White House in Washington after President Donald Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate accord in 2017 © Susan Walsh/AP

Even the UK, which as host of the COP26 climate talks has set itself an ambitious target for 2030, has not yet spelt out the policies that will enable it to achieve such rapid emissions cuts. And in the US, President-elect Biden may struggle to get his $2tn climate plan approved by Congress.

“Some very exciting public announcements have been made, but we are not there yet,” says Inger Andersen, head of the UN Environment Programme. She points to a recent UNEP report, which outlines how — despite the lower emissions due to the disruptions from coronavirus — climate pledges are still not quite on track, particularly over the next decade. “If we land at 3C or 4C, Covid is just a little overture to what we will see [in terms of the impact on the world],” she says.

Meanwhile the planet will keep getting warmer, even as climate action speeds up. The natural disasters that marked 2020, from devastating wildfires in California, to heatwaves across Siberia, are likely to come again. And for all the fine words at the weekend’s summit, the youthful climate protesters have no intention of letting up the pressure on political leaders.

“The action needed is still nowhere in sight,” said Ms Thunberg in a video posted on Twitter ahead of the summit. In her view, the five years since the Paris agreement have been five years of empty words. The 17-year-old climate activist added: “Distant hypothetical targets are being set, and big speeches are being given. Yet, when it comes to the immediate action we need, we are still in a state of complete denial.”

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2020-12-12 17:00:00Z
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Coronavirus: NI dentists' concern over missed dental check-ups - BBC News

dentist
Getty/Luis Alvarez

Dentists in NI have expressed concern about the impact of coronavirus restrictions on patients' oral health.

The British Dental Association (BDA) NI has warned that fewer dental check-ups may lead to serious problems not being picked up soon enough.

Compared to the same period last year, patient interactions were down 78% for the first six months of 2020/21.

Iain Hoy from the BDA NI said forced reduction in activity will "undoubtedly have implications on oral health".

He said that with "limited capacity" dentists have been asked to prioritise urgent and emergency treatments.

On Saturday, the Department of Health reported nine coronavirus-related deaths, bringing its total to 1,120.

There were 476 more confirmed cases of the virus, meaning there have been 57,733 positive tests in Northern Ireland.

NI's Health and Social Care quarterly dental statistics show that the number of patients seen by general dental service dentists in NI fell from 163,537 in February, to 8,825 in June, and rose again to 49,059 in September.

"Issues arising from routine six-month check-ups, which could have been dealt with at an early stage, could now be easily missed, leading to more significant work being required in the future," said Mr Hoy.

  • Dentists voice concern as routine care resumes
  • Covid 'Millions of dental treatments missed'

Many dental procedures are aerosol-generating, which means they release airborne particles which can potentially spread infection.

Ciara Gallagher
Mullan Gallagher Dental Care

Coronavirus regulations mean there must be a "fallow period" to minimise the risk of transmitting the virus.

Most practices are operating at a reduced capacity because of this.

"We are carrying out some routine examinations but only a fraction of what we did pre-Covid," said Ciara Gallagher of Mullan Gallagher Dental Care in Downpatrick.

"A dental examination is an oral health screen where small dental problems in the mouth are spotted before they become big problems

"It applies equally to dental disease such tooth decay and gum disease as well as the much more serious issue of potential oral cancers," she told BBC News NI.

'Oral cancer'

Chair of the NI Dental Practice Committee, Richard Graham, told BBC News NI dentists are worried.

"I was on a call with Dr Gerry McKenna, from the Royal School of Dentistry, and he is concerned that they're not seeing the numbers of referrals that they would expect to see," he said.

"The referrals they're getting are at a later stage and, like all cancers, early diagnosis is really important for successful treatment.

"It's quite concerning," he added.

"If someone has an unexplained swelling or an ulcer that hasn't healed up after a couple of weeks, a sensation of numbness or tingling in their lip or tongue, they need to see their dentist," he said.

Dr McKenna, who is chair of BDA NI's Hospitals Group, told the British Dental Journal the "true impact" will not be felt until next year.

Mr Graham said that during routine check-ups the whole mouth is screened and "a lot is picked up in an opportunistic fashion" even when the patient is not aware of a problem.

"We often see a lesion or swelling or something that shouldn't be there - those aren't being picked up," he added.

However he said the measures in place were there to keep patients and staff safe.

Ms Gallagher said there was a worry about brushing habits in children as check-ups also "reinforce the health message, where the message from a different voice always seems to land better".

dentist
Getty/Peter Cade

Mr Graham said the Department of Health had helped the industry financially.

"It isn't perfect but we are in a situation where we have kind of stabilised the health service end of practice," he said.

However, there are concerns over private and mixed practices.

"The Department for the Economy (DE) has not stepped up and has not helped that end," he told BBC News NI.

"The issue is that the private end of dentistry has subsidised the health service end for many years. Without help, most dental practices are in trouble."

He said he knew dentists who have been living on savings for nine months.

woman waits at reception
Getty/Dean Mitchell

"None of the things the DE have done apply to general practice," he said.

"They keep saying: 'You're open for business.' But you can't treat people in the capacity that you were previously.

"No one wants to put fees up to the extent where you create a two-tier system."

A spokesperson for the Department for the Economy said: "The development of funding support schemes to assist businesses and individuals experiencing hardship as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic is a matter for collective executive agreement, with proposals for schemes brought forward by the responsible minister.

"The regulations setting practice guidelines and creating capacity limits for dentistry and other medical professions fall outside the responsibility of DfE."

The department also said a four-month rate holiday was provided to all businesses.

Dentist stress

Ms Gallagher said financial support from the Department of Health in respect of NHS dental care had been "a life raft for many practices which may otherwise have sunk".

"While there is a thought process that private dentistry is lucrative, and therefore could manage, no-one can manage when their incomings go to zero," she said.

She told BBC News NI that one of the biggest challenges facing her profession is "stress and uncertainty" - both physical and mental.

There is also added pressure caused by dental practices now having to work seven days a week.

Dentists do "delicate intricate procedures in the confined space of the mouth whilst wearing this restrictive clothing," she said

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2020-12-12 14:40:00Z
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World needs to declare 'climate emergency' - UN - BBC News

Antonio Guterres
UN

The UN secretary general has called on all countries to declare a climate emergency.

António Guterres was speaking at a virtual summit on the fifth anniversary of the Paris climate agreement,

He criticised rich countries for spending 50% more of their pandemic recovery cash on fossil fuels compared to low-carbon energy.

Over 70 world leaders are due to speak at the meeting organised by the UK, UN and France.

Mr Guterres said that 38 countries had already declared a climate emergency and he called on leaders worldwide to now do the same.

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He said the emergency would only end when carbon neutrality was reached.

On the Covid recovery spending, he said that this is money being borrowed from future generations.

"We cannot use these resources to lock in policies that burden future generations with a mountain of debt on a broken planet," he said.

The secretary general praised those countries who have come to today's meeting with new targets and plans.

A number of big emitters, including Australia, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Mexico, are not taking part, as their climate actions were not deemed ambitious enough.

The UK has announced an end to support for overseas fossil fuel projects, and has today deposited a new climate plan with the UN.

It's the first time that Britain has had to do this, as it was previously covered by the European Union's climate commitments.

Today's virtual gathering is taking place after the pandemic caused the postponement of the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) meeting, which had been due to take place in Glasgow this year.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the year was coming to an end with "a certain amount of scientific optimism" because "barely 12 months after the start of the pandemic, we're seeing the vaccine going into the arms of the elderly".

"Together we can use scientific advances to protect our entire planet - our biosphere - against a challenge far worse, far more destructive even than the coronavirus. And by the promethean power of our invention, we can begin to defend the Earth against the disaster of global warming."

Boris Johnson
UK government

The UK says that today's short, action-oriented summit will put a premium on new commitments from countries.

Around 70 leaders from all over the world will take part, including the Secretary General of the United Nations, and President Macron of France. Pope Francis will also address the meeting.

The UK will point to its new commitment on overseas fossil fuel projects as well as a new carbon cutting target of 68% by 2030, announced last week by the prime minister.

The EU will also present a new 2030 target of a 55% cut in emissions, agreed after all-night negotiations this week.

China and India will also be taking part, though the extent of their new commitments is not clear.

Uk

Australia had held out the promise of not using old carbon credits to meet future cuts in emissions.

But the UK felt that this didn't go far enough and the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison won't be taking part.

Russia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia won't be involved either.

Some observers believe this hard line is justified.

"From a kind of symbolic procedural point of view, it's good to have everybody on board," said Prof Heike Schroeder from the University of East Anglia.

"But from a proactive, creating some kind of sense of urgency approach it also makes sense to say we only get to hear from you if you have something new to say."

Hurricane
Reuters

The UK wants the focus to be on the countries who are set to make new net-zero announcements, or present new plans for 2030.

Boris Johnson said climate change was "already costing lives and livelihoods the world over, our actions as leaders must be driven not by timidity or caution, but by ambition on a truly grand scale.

"That is why the UK recently led the way with a bold new commitment to reduce emissions by at least 68% by 2030, and why I'm pleased to say today that the UK will end taxpayer support for fossil fuel projects overseas as soon as possible."

The five years since the Paris agreement was adopted have been the warmest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and emissions have continued to accrue in the atmosphere.

Over that period, many countries and businesses have started the process of decarbonisation.

The progress they've made now needs to be acknowledged and encouraged, says former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.

"For this Saturday, they are focusing on the reduction of emissions, and that is a good thing because that progress that's been seen in the real economy has to be reflected and incentivised further by those additional commitments."

One area that's unlikely to yield any progress at this meeting is the question of finance. Rich countries have promised to mobilise $100bn a year from 2020 under the Paris agreement - but the commitments on cash are just not forthcoming.

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2020-12-12 14:26:00Z
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Alfred Bourgeois: Second death row inmate executed in two days - BBC News

Alfred Bourgeois
CBS

A man who killed his toddler daughter nearly 20 years ago has become the second US federal inmate to be executed in as many days.

Alfred Bourgeois' death by lethal injection on Friday comes after Brandon Bernard was put to death on Thursday.

Three more executions are planned before the end of Donald Trump's presidency on 20 January.

Federal executions had been on pause for 17 years before Mr Trump ordered them to resume earlier this year.

If the remaining executions go ahead, Mr Trump will have overseen the most executions by a US president in more than a century.

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They break with an 130-year-old precedent of pausing executions during a presidential transition. President-elect Joe Biden takes office on 20 January.

Mr Biden, who for decades was a fierce proponent of the death penalty as a Delaware senator, has said he will seek to end federal executions once he takes office.

The federal death penalty had not been used since 2003, in part due to concerns about the drugs used in executions.

Abuse

Courts ruled that Bourgeois had physically and sexually abused his two-year-old daughter before killing her as he passed through Texas while working as a long-haul truck driver.

Prosecutors say he killed her by slamming her head into the car's window and dashboard after she spilled her training potty in the vehicle while he was parking.

Bourgeois, who was sentenced to death in 2004, was making a delivery to a military base when he killed his daughter so he was tried in a federal court.

His lawyers argued that he had a severe intellectual disability that should have prevented him from being executed.

Brandon Bernard was executed in Indiana after last-minute clemency pleas were rejected by the US Supreme Court.

Bernard, 40, was convicted of murder in 1999 when he was a teenager, and is the youngest offender to be executed by the federal government in nearly 70 years.

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The inmates facing execution

  • Lisa Montgomery strangled a pregnant woman in Missouri before cutting out and kidnapping the baby in 2004. She is scheduled for execution on 12 January. Her lawyers have said she experienced brain damage from beatings as a child and suffers from serious mental illness. She will be the first woman to face federal execution in the US since 1953.
  • Cory Johnson was convicted for the murder of seven people, related to his involvement with the drug trade in Richmond, Virginia. Johnson's legal team has argued that he suffers from an intellectual disability, related to physical and emotional abuse he experienced as a child. His execution is scheduled for 14 January.
  • Dustin John Higgs was convicted in the 1996 kidnapping and murder of three young women in the Washington, DC area. Higgs did not kill any of his victims, but instructed his co-defendant Willis Haynes to do so. Haynes has said in court documents that Higgs did not threaten him, or force him to shoot. Higgs is scheduled for execution on 15 January.
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2020-12-12 10:44:00Z
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'Having a laugh!' Verhofstadt mocked after claiming EU is 'global power' in Turkey rant - Daily Express

The European Parliament's former representative took to social media to made his feeling plain about the EU's decision to delay imposing tariffs and an arms embargo in response to 's operation to explore for hydrocarbons off the coast of Cyprus and Greece. Instead, the bloc announced a series of more moderate measures targeting an unspecified number of Turkish officials and entities. He tweeted: "EU pussyfooting on sanctions risks undermining our credibility as a global power even further, and creating a rift members states.

"What more do we need before we act?!"

Albert Quop responded: "Unfortunately (in all honesty), EU has demonstrated time and time again that it is not a global power.

"EU is nowhere to be seen on the diplomatic seen, but on Twitter..."

Kyriakos Themistocleous said: "As a global what? "Sorry my friend, but we are far away from being a power. That’s the bitter truth!

"We sure used to be, for internal affairs, but we even lost our power on that section as well!! (Poland & Hungary) EU’s geopolitical attitude has to change immediately.

Another simply observed: "Global Power?! You’re having a laugh."

Other Twitter users suggested the Mr Verhofstadt's claim was not backed up by reality.

He said: "If you are a global power, why is the USA still protecting you 75 years after the end of WWII?

"Why are there still US troops in Europe?"

Anton Waye Tranberg added: "A global power. You must be familiar with the concept. UK was 200 yrs ago."

Others referenced the UK's decision to quit the EU.

John Toomey reminded Mr Farage of his old sparring partner, saying: "Global power? Merkel = Global Leader, Verhofstadt = struggled to deal with Farage."

And another said: "The EU has not become a union based on common values or shared identity and culture, but a cartel based on common interests.

"After Brexit and with the Germans dominant it is even worse.

"The EU can not be a global power. Its time to be honest about it."

Meanwhile Gunter Fehlinger pointed out Turkey was a member of NATO.

He posted: "Turkey is our Ally! Focus on hostile Russia

"From Ivory Tower of @guyverhofstadt moral grandstanding is easy! But if you are at Eastern Front of Western World and hostile Russia and Iran next door you see the world more realistic @ZelenskyyUa @RTErdogan."

Mr Verhofstadt has made similarly grandiose claims about the EU in the past.

Speaking at the Liberal Democrat's annual conference last year as he pushed the idea of a European army, he said: "The world of tomorrow is a world of empires, in which we Europeans and you British can only defend your interests, your way of life by doing it together in a European framework and a European Union.

He added: "The world order of tomorrow is not a world order based on nation states or countries, it’s a world order that is based on empires. China is not a nation, it’s a civilisation."

The EU's imposition of limited punitive measures was rapidly reject by the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs, which issued a statement in which it said: "We reject the biased and unlawful attitude which had to be inserted into the 10 December EU summit conclusions after the pressure of solidarity and veto."

Tensions between Turkey on the one hand, and Greece and Cyprus on the other, spiked significantly after President Recept Tayyip Erdogan sent the research vessel Oruc Reis to the eastern Mediterranean in the summer, and have been simmering ever since.

Speaking prior to Thursday's European summit, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: "It is very clear what is at stake here: the credibility of the European Union."

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2020-12-12 08:16:00Z
CBMiemh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmV4cHJlc3MuY28udWsvbmV3cy93b3JsZC8xMzcxNTg5L2V1LW5ld3MtZ3V5LXZlcmhvZnN0YWR0LXR1cmtleS1icmV4aXQtbmV3cy1uaWdlbC1mYXJhZ2UtZ3JlZWNlLWN5cHJ1cy1ldS1hcm150gF-aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZXhwcmVzcy5jby51ay9uZXdzL3dvcmxkLzEzNzE1ODkvZXUtbmV3cy1ndXktdmVyaG9mc3RhZHQtdHVya2V5LWJyZXhpdC1uZXdzLW5pZ2VsLWZhcmFnZS1ncmVlY2UtY3lwcnVzLWV1LWFybXkvYW1w

Jumat, 11 Desember 2020

US Supreme Court rejects Trump-backed challenge to election - Financial Times

The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected an unprecedented attempt by the state of Texas to throw out election results in four battleground states that Donald Trump lost, an effort backed by the president and more than 100 other elected Republicans.

In a brief statement explaining its decision, the court rejected the suit without a hearing, saying Texas had no standing to challenge the results in other states: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognisable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”

Two of the court’s most conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, said they would have supported a hearing on the case, but added in a short statement that they would “not grant other relief”.

Ben Sasse, a Republican senator from Nebraska who has been at times critical of Mr Trump, said in a statement: “Every American who cares about the rule of law should take comfort that the Supreme Court — including all three of President Trump’s picks — closed the book on the nonsense.”

The Texas attorney-general, Ken Paxton, a Republican reportedly under federal investigation, had asked the US high court to dismiss more than 20m votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, four battleground states that carried Joe Biden to victory.

The manoeuvre was supported not just by Mr Trump but also by 17 other Republican state attorneys-general and 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy.

Mr Paxton filed the lawsuit on Monday, weeks after the November 3 election and after each of the states had certified their results, asking the US high court to invoke its original jurisdiction over disputes between states and allow the case to go forward. The lawsuit sought to set aside the elections in the four states so their Republican-controlled state legislatures could decide the winner instead.

The case drew a furious reaction from the states targeted by Texas, with Pennsylvania’s Democratic attorney-general, Josh Shapiro, writing in response that the case was a “seditious abuse of the judicial process”. By Friday, the public docket for the case had attracted filings that added farce to the drama as a lawyer representing the fictitious states of New California and New Nevada issued a brief in support of Texas.

The Supreme Court on Friday evening summarily dismissed the case without issuing the broader rebuke requested by Pennsylvania.

Mr Paxton called the decision “unfortunate”, adding: “I will continue to tirelessly defend the integrity and security of our elections and hold accountable those who shirk established election law for their own convenience.”

The statement by Mr Alito and Mr Thomas that they would have allowed Texas to go forward with the case was in line with their previously stated view that the Supreme Court does not have discretion in whether or not to hear litigation between states.

The lawsuit was the latest in a wide-ranging effort by Mr Trump and his allies to undo his loss in the November 3 election, including not only legal actions but attempts to publicly or privately pressure state election officials.

Though the assault has failed to reverse Mr Biden’s victory, the unsubstantiated claims of fraud have undermined faith in the US electoral system, resulted in death threats against election workers and revealed a startling willingness by elected Republicans to either explicitly support or silently tolerate the undoing of the democratic process.

Josh Kaul, the Democratic attorney-general of Wisconsin, earlier on Friday told reporters that the Texas lawsuit was a “red alert warning for our democracy” and said the arguments were “extreme and they’re anti-democratic”.

“These elected officials are attempting to have not the losing candidate but rather the voters replaced. That is the reasoning of dictatorship not democracy,” he said.

The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday was the second time in just a matter of days that it rejected an attempt to undo the election through the courts, underscoring the futility of Mr Trump’s legal efforts.

Dana Nessel, Michigan’s Democratic attorney-general, said in a statement after the ruling that it was a reminder “that we are a nation of laws, and though some may bend to the desire of a single individual, the courts will not”.

Around the same time as the court handed down its verdict, Mr Trump tweeted a new advert that repeated his false claims that the election was fraudulent.

Michael Gwin, a Biden spokesman, said: “President-elect Biden’s clear and commanding victory will be ratified by the Electoral College on Monday, and he will be sworn in on January 20.”

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2020-12-12 01:35:00Z
52781239578227

US Supreme Court rejects Trump-backed challenge to election - Financial Times

The US Supreme Court on Friday rejected an unprecedented attempt by the state of Texas to throw out election results in four battleground states that Donald Trump lost, an effort backed by the president and more than 100 other elected Republicans.

In a brief statement explaining its decision, the court rejected the suit without a hearing, saying Texas had no standing to challenge the results in other states: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”

Two of the court’s most conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, said they would have supported a hearing on the case, but added in a short statement that they would “not grant other relief”.

The Texas attorney-general, Ken Paxton, a Republican currently under federal investigation, had asked the US high court to dismiss over 20m votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, four battleground states that carried Joe Biden to victory.

The manoeuvre was supported not just by Mr Trump but also by 17 other Republican state attorneys-general and 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives, including House minority leader Kevin McCarthy.

Mr Paxton filed the lawsuit on Monday, weeks after the November 3 election and after each of the states had certified their results, asking the US high court to invoke its original jurisdiction over disputes between states and allow the case to go forward. The lawsuit sought to set aside the elections in the four states so their Republican-controlled state legislatures could decide the winner instead.

The case drew a furious reaction from the states targeted by Texas, with the Pennsylvania attorney-general, Josh Shapiro, writing in response that the case was a “seditious abuse of the judicial process”.

The lawsuit was the latest in a wide-ranging effort by Mr Trump and his allies to undo his loss in the November 3 election, including not only legal actions but attempts to publicly or privately pressure state election officials.

Though the assault has failed to reverse Mr Biden’s victory, the unsubstantiated claims of fraud have undermined faith in the US electoral system, resulted in death threats against election workers and revealed a startling willingness by elected Republicans to either explicitly support or silently tolerate the undoing of the democratic process.

Josh Kaul, the Democratic attorney-general of Wisconsin, on Friday told reporters that the Texas lawsuit was a “red alert warning for our democracy” and said the arguments were “extreme and they’re anti-democratic”.

“These elected officials are attempting to have not the losing candidate but rather the voters replaced. That is the reasoning of dictatorship not democracy,” he said.

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2020-12-11 23:41:00Z
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