2023-12-10 20:16
Dec 10 (Reuters) - Emergency crews worked on Sunday to check, clear and restore power to areas hard-hit by severe storms and tornadoes that claimed the lives of at least six people and left a trail of destruction in Tennessee this weekend. In the city of Clarksville in Montgomery County, one of the hardest-hit areas, the Red Cross set up a shelter at a local high school to offer assistance to people who may have been temporarily displaced by the tornadoes. Shelters were also opened in Nashville and its suburbs. "The road to recovery is going to take time and we ask that citizens who are not directly involved in search, rescue, or recovery efforts to avoid the impacted areas," the Clarksville Police Department said on its Facebook page on Sunday. "Emergency Crews are working as quickly as possible." More than 40,000 people in Tennessee were left without power as of Sunday morning, according to outage tracking website poweroutage.us. A car partly buried under a giant pile of rubble that used to be someone's home, collapsed roofs and blown-out windows: These were some of the dramatic images of the devastation caused by the Tennessee tornadoes. The six fatalities were reported by officials in Montgomery County and in Nashville. A toddler was one of the three victims of the storms in the Nashville area, police said, and 13 people in stable condition were transported to nearby hospitals. "Right now we're just trying to be with all those people who lost so much," Montgomery County Mayor Wes Golden told ABC News. The U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) in Nashville ended the severe weather threat for all middle Tennessee late on Saturday. The agency on Sunday said it was dispatching survey teams over the coming days to the hardest-hit communities to assess the path and strength of the tornadoes. "We have had six likely confirmed tornado tracks," NWS Corey Mueller told The Tennessean. "But they won’t be confirmed until the survey team gets out there." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/tennessee-looks-recovery-after-string-deadly-tornadoes-2023-12-10/
2023-12-10 20:03
DUBAI, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Oil producer group OPEC held an event on the sidelines of the COP28 negotiations in Dubai on Sunday aimed at convincing young people to support fossil fuels, whose future has caused deep splits among delegates at the climate summit. Dubbed "Special Day – OPEC and the youth" the event included a presentation at its pavilion on the summit grounds, followed by what it called a campfire chat. Roughly a dozen young people attended, some of them anti-fossil fuel activists. OPEC officials working the event had a simple message: rapid population growth means oil demand will continue to grow, and renewable energy is expensive and limited. OPEC’s Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais asked the audience to visualize a population boom the size of "50 Londons" by 2030. London’s population is about 9 million. "This is to make a point of how much additional energy we're talking about," he said. One OPEC representative pointed out the importance of fossil fuels in the medical sector, and asked the group whether someone who needed to be rushed away in an ambulance would care if the fuel used was sustainable. A monitor behind him displayed the message: "OPEC recognizes the critical role of the youth in shaping the energy industry and shaping an energy future for all." Around a dozen activists from the organization 350.org briefly entered the pavilion between sessions and chanted: "What do we want? Phase out. When do we want it? Now." That was a reference to proposed language in the COP28 final agreement that would, for the first time, call for a phase out of the use of fossil fuels, the main source of greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for global warming. OPEC opposes the proposal, and earlier this week made a rare intervention in climate talks by urging its members and allies to reject a targeting of fossil fuels in the final summit deal. Another OPEC representative spoke with some of the young activists outside the pavilion, debating them on the future of oil. Also on display in the OPEC pavilion were everyday items made with, or run on, petroleum products, like a soccer ball and a miniature school bus. A small chalkboard easel hand-written with different colors said: "Special day-OPEC and the Youth". Michael Matchell, who attended the event on behalf of a group called Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told Reuters OPEC had a chance to listen to their concerns about climate change, but repeated its own arguments instead. "I believe they missed a crucial opportunity to engage with young people," he said. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/opec-pursues-charm-offensive-cop28-youths-2023-12-10/
2023-12-10 17:01
DUBAI, Dec 10 (Reuters) - The COP28 climate summit has generated a lot of words over the past two weeks and some clear favourites have emerged. These buzzwords - used by global leaders, activists and experts alike - have appeared so regularly in podium speeches and press conferences that the crowds at the U.N. conference often break out into giggles. Two of the most common are "North Star" and "science" - which COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber uses to describe his guiding principles at the summit - limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5C above the preindustrial average. "My job and this mission is to ensure that ... we stay laser-focused on our North Star, and that is keeping 1.5 within reach," he told the summit on Monday. "If anything you will only see my North Star more shining, because that's how much I care about keeping focus on my North Star." 'NORTH STAR' The North Star cannot be seen by those living in the Southern Hemisphere, but nevertheless the concept of the North Star as a guide towards climate change goals has caught on at the conference. U.S. climate envoy John Kerry showed he was a fan during a press conference on Wednesday, as did Norwegian minister Espen Barth-Eide in a speech to the summit on Saturday. Their North Star references drew titters as the jargon-heavy conference rumbled on. U.N. climate Chief Simon Stiell on Friday even promised a rocket of climate-friendly economic policies to take the summit toward the North Star. Out and about in the Dubai COP28 venue, delegates were hoping that repeating the phrase might help to hammer home the message to the wider world. "The way the human brain works, if you repeat a phrase over and over and over and over and over again ... the message goes through," said Clifford Gonzalves Bastille, a delegate from the Seychelles. THE 'SCIENCE' If 1.5C is the COP28 North Star, then "science" is the way to get there, based on this year's COP lexicon. "Follow the science and help keep 1.5 degrees Celsius alive," Kerry told the Wednesday press conference, in which he made at least 10 more similar references. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, campaigning to eliminate methane emissions, said the message from "the science must be simple to turn down the heat." Britain's PM Rishi Sunak said "the climate science and mounting evidence of climate-related disasters show that we're not moving quickly or effectively enough." But "science" can mean different things to different people. "When we say 'follow the science,' everyone has a different interpretation," said Killian Abellon an observer at the conference with World YMCA. "Some people are going to use it as a buzzword to convince us that their technological solutions are following the science," Abellon said. "The technology is going to buy us some time for sure, but it's not going to be enough." According to the science. For daily comprehensive coverage on COP28 in your inbox, sign up for the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/leadership-lingo-guides-climate-summit-towards-its-north-star-2023-12-10/
2023-12-10 16:41
BUDAPEST, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Hungarian truckers plan to protest near Hungary's main border crossing with Ukraine on Monday, aiming to slow the movement of trucks as they demand restrictions on Ukrainian hauliers working in the European Union, police said on Sunday. Police have given permission for the protest in which about a dozen trucks will partially block the main road leading to the Zahony crossing, police said in a reply to emailed questions from Reuters. Police did not say how long the protest would last but website index.hu reported the plan was to partially block the road leading to the border until the end of December. Truckers from Ukraine have been exempt from seeking permits to cross into the European Union since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Hauliers across eastern Europe have sought to win restrictions on the number of Ukrainian trucks entering the EU. "We have asked the EU ... to review its agreement signed with Ukraine and consider the interests of hauliers in EU members, among them Hungary," Tivadar Arvay, general secretary of the Association of Hungarian Road Hauliers told state news agency MTI. In the past weeks trucks at the Poland-Ukraine crossing were backed up for miles as Polish truckers blocked roads to three border crossings. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hungarian-truckers-protest-ukraine-border-crossing-monday-2023-12-10/
2023-12-10 16:04
Dec 10 (Reuters) - The collapse of an artisanal gold mine in southeastern Venezuela near an Indigenous community killed at least 12 people, the government announced on Sunday. A landslide on Wednesday buried the Paraiba de San Jose de Wadamapa mine near the town of Icabaru in Venezuela's Bolivar state, close to the country's border with Brazil. Amid Venezuela's prolonged economic collapse, informal mining operations have flourished in remote, mineral-rich areas of the country, where thousands of miners work to extract lucrative metals, especially gold, in unsafe conditions. The accident-prone mines are run with little or no oversight from authorities, though the government often processes the gold into bars for its own use. Venezuela's Indigenous communities have a complex relationship with gold mining, which can provide an economic lifeline but also cause deforestation, mercury contamination and divert streams and rivers. In November, local non-governmental organization SOS Orinoco reported a previous landslide at the same mine. Venezuela's risk management and civil protection agency said in a post on X that it was providing food, water and medical provisions to those affected, while also coordinating the transfer of the bodies to Puerto Ordaz, some 700 kilometers (435 miles) to the north. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/gold-mine-collapse-venezuela-kills-dozen-people-2023-12-10/
2023-12-10 15:12
NIS, Serbia, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Serbia on Sunday completed the interconnector to a pipeline in Bulgaria which would allow the Balkan country to diversify its gas supplies and reduce its dependence on Russia. The launch of the interconnector will make operational the pipeline from the town of Novi Iskar in Bulgaria to the Serbian city of Nis, allowing Belgrade to access gas from Azerbaijan and LNG terminal in the Greek port of Alexandroupolis. The capacity of the pipeline on the Serbian side is 1.8 cubic metres a year, which accounts for 60% of the country's annual gas needs. The European Commision donated 49.6 million euros ($53.37 million) for construction of the interconnector. Another 25 million euros was secured in a single loan from the European Investment Bank while 22.5 million was provided by Serbia. "With this interconnector we are securing alternative gas supplies, apart from the Russian gas," Serbian energy minister, Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Bulgaria's President Rumen Radev attended the ceremony in Nis. "Today we are changing the energy map of Europe," Radev said. "The interconnector is significant for the entire region. The war in Ukraine made us think about good neighbourly relations and support." On Nov 15, Serbia signed a deal with Azerbaijan to purchase 400 million cubic metres of natural gas per year from 2024. "If in 2021, our gas exports to Europe totalled a little more than 8 billion cubic metres, then this year the volume of supplies will reach around 12 billion cubic metres," Aliyev said. European countries now account for half of all Azerbaijan's gas deliveries, Aliyev said. Baku is well on the way to doubling its gas supplies to Europe to 20 billion cubic metres by 2027, he said. Azerbaijan is considered by Europe as an alternative source of energy imports amid a deep political fallout with Moscow over the war in Ukraine and sharp cuts in Russian gas purchases. ($1 = 0.9293 euros) https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/serbia-launches-interconnector-gas-pipeline-bulgaria-2023-12-10/
