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Észak-Karolina állam hatóságai bűnügyi nyomozást folytatnak a hétvégi áramszünetek ügyében, miután két elektromos elosztóállomásnál lőfegyverrel elkövetett támadás nyomait találtak, és szombat éjszaka több tízezer fogyasztónál szűnt meg a szolgáltatás, az iskolák és számos üzlet volt kénytelen hétfőn zárva tartani.

A vizsgálatba a Szövetségi Nyomozó Iroda (FBI) is bekapcsolódott vasárnap az Észak-Karolina állam középső részén fekvő Moore megye területén.

A megyei rendőrségi vezetője vasárnapi sajtótájékoztatóján úgy fogalmazott: nem véletlen célpontokról van szó, az elkövető vagy elkövetők pedig pontosan tudták, mit tesznek, amikor lőfegyverből több sorozatot adtak le az elektromos alközpontokra, de az elkövetők indítékáról egyelőre fogalmuk sincs.

A hatóságok a lakosság és vállalkozások biztonságára hivatkozva vasárnap éjszakára kijárási tilalmat is elrendeltek az érintett körzetben. Vasárnap este még mindig mintegy 33 ezer otthonban nem volt áram, sok helyütt a közlekedési lámpák sem működtek és a helyi illetékesek szerint a megye egyes területein csütörtöknél előbb nem tudják visszaállítani a szolgáltatást.

Hétfőn a megye minden iskolája zárva tartott, sok üzlet nem tudott kinyitni. A rászorulóknak melegedőket nyitottak, valamint mobil áramfejlesztőket állítottak működésbe Észak-Karolina állam Moore megyéjében.

 

The post Elektromos elosztóállomások elleni támadások miatt nyomoznak Észak-Karolinában appeared first on .

Verkehrsminister Matteo Salvini und EU-Industriekommissarin Adina-Ioana Valean haben am Montag eine Vereinbarung unterzeichnet, um die Finanzierung einer Brücke zu sichern, die Sizilien mit dem Rest Italiens und dem europäischen Festland verbinden würde.

With the right investments today, the Western Balkans can achieve a carbon-free power system by 2045. The EU-Western Balkans summit is an opportunity to give the region’s green energy transition a welcome push, writes Christian Redl.

Aus Sicht des tschechischen Innenministeriums müssen europäische Länder die Ukraine weiterhin mit Waffen unterstützen, auch wenn die Gefahr bestehe, dass diese in die EU zurück geschmuggelt werden. Der Kreml verbreite weiterhin sein Narrativ des Waffenschmuggels, um Kyjiw zu schwächen.

Die Atlanta Hawks mit Clint Capela müssen in der NBA nach zwei Siegen wieder eine Niederlage hinnehmen.

Nothing changes for Slovakia despite the EU's Russian oil embargo kicking in on Monday (5 December) as Slovakia is exempt, said Economy Minister Karel Hirman.

EU legislators reached an agreement in the early hours of Tuesday (6 December) to pass a new law guaranteeing that products sold in the EU are not linked to the destruction or degradation of forests.

As the EU is struggling to find a reaction to the US’s multi-billion dollar heavy Inflation Reduction Act, German finance minister Christian Lindner has made it clear that such a response would not entail any form of joint borrowing on the EU level.

Que serait Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) sans la lutte contre le nucléaire ? Pourtant, selon un sondage, hors les murs du parti, les sympathisants seraient pourtant prompts à défendre l’atome.

Le parti socialiste PSOE du Premier ministre Pedro Sanchez pourrait remporter les prochaines élections générales espagnoles qui auront lieu en décembre 2023, selon un nouveau sondage publié lundi (5 décembre).

Mégsem veszett fejsze nyele a szlovák-magyar viszony, derült ki Káčer és Szijjártó találkozója után. 5000 eurós juttatással bírná maradásra a kormány a kórházak és egészségügyi mentőszolgálatok dolgozóit. A Polis Slovakia felmérése szerint a Szövetség 0,2 %-ra van a parlamenti küszöbtől, amely felett a Hlas és a Smer az úr.

Rien ne change pour la Slovaquie, qui est exemptée de l’embargo sur le pétrole russe décidé par les dirigeants de l’UE en mai et qui est finalement entré en vigueur lundi, a déclaré le ministre de l’Économie Karel Hirman.

Ukraine warned there would be emergency blackouts once again in several regions as it repaired damage from missile attacks it said destroyed homes and knocked out power, while Moscow accused Kyiv of attacking deep inside Russia with drones.

Der Chefankläger des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs (IStGH) in Den Haag hat sich gegen die Einrichtung eines Sondertribunals zur Ahndung russischer Verbrechen in der Ukraine ausgesprochen.

Am letzten Achtelfinal-Spieltag trifft Marroko auf Spanien und Portugal auf die Schweiz – die Muotathaler Wetterschmöcker Roman Ulrich (51) und Karl Hediger (69) werden auf Blick TV zu WM-Schmöckern und tippen die Resultate der beiden Partien.

Die US-Aktienmärkte sind am Montag wegen neuer Zinsbedenken mit klaren Verlusten in die Woche gestartet. Vor dem Hintergrund recht starker Wirtschaftsdaten sank der Leitindex Dow Jones Industrial um 1,40 Prozent auf 33'947 Punkte.

Noch vor Weihnachten wird mit der Volkswagen-Tochter Porsche AG ein weiterer Autokonzern in den Dax aufgenommen. Zudem gibt es im MDax und SDax einige Veränderungen.

Die US-Bundespolizei FBI ermittelt nach Angriffen auf Strom-Umspannwerke im Bundesstaat North Carolina. Seit dem Wochenende sind dort im Bezirk Moore County Zehntausende Menschen ohne Strom.

The existing institutional make-up of the EU could cope with a new wave of enlargement without the need for EU reform, a senior French diplomat who wished to remain anonymous told EURACTIV. Any treaty change would need to go through...

By Hezri A Adnan and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Dec 6 2022 (IPS)

Natural flows do not respect national boundaries. The atmosphere and oceans cross international borders with little difficulty, as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other fluids, including pollutants, easily traverse frontiers.

Yet, in multilateral fora, strategies to address climate change and its effects remain largely national. GHG emissions – typically measured as carbon dioxide equivalents – are the main bases for assessing national climate action commitments.

Hezri A Adnan

Assessing national responsibility
Jayati Ghosh, Shouvik Chakraborty and Debamanyu Das have critically considered how national climate responsibilities are assessed. The standard method – used by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – measures GHG emissions by activities within national boundaries.

This approach attributes GHG emissions to the country where goods are produced. Such carbon accounting focuses blame for global warming on newly industrializing economies. But it ignores who consumes the goods and where, besides diverting attention from those most responsible for historical emissions.

Thus, attention has focused on big national emitters. China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and other large developing economies – especially the ‘late industrializers’ – have become the new climate villains.

China, the United States and India are now the world’s three largest GHG emitters in absolute terms, accounting for over half the total. With more rapid growth in recent decades, China and India have greatly increased emissions.

Undoubtedly, some developing countries have seen rapid GHG emission increases, especially during high growth episodes. In the first two decades of this century, such emissions rose over 3-fold in China, 2.7 times in India, and 4.7-fold in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, most rich economies have seen smaller increases, even declines in emissions, as they ‘outsource’ labour- and energy-intensive activities to the global South. Thus, over the same period, production emissions fell by 12% in the US and Japan, and by nearly 22% in Germany.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Obscuring inequalities
Only comparing total national emissions is not just one-sided, but also misleading, as countries have very different populations, economic outputs and structures.

But determining responsibility for global warming fairly is necessary to ensure equitable burden sharing for adequate climate action. Most climate change negotiations and discussions typically refer to aggregate national emissions and income measures, rather than per capita levels.

But such framing obscures the underlying inequalities involved. A per capita view comparing average GHG emissions offers a more nuanced, albeit understated perspective on the global disparities involved.

Thus, in spite of recent reductions, rich economies are still the greatest GHG emitters per capita. The US and Australia spew eight times more per head than developing countries like India, Indonesia and Brazil.

Despite its recent emission increases, even China emits less than half US per capita levels. Meanwhile, its annual emissions growth fell from 9.3% in 2002 to 0.6% in 2012. Even The Economist acknowledged China’s per capita emissions in 2019 were comparable to industrializing Western nations in 1885!

Several developments have contributed to recent reductions in rich nations’ emissions. Richer countries can better afford ‘climate-friendly’ improvements, by switching energy sources away from the most harmful fossil fuels to less GHG-emitting options such as natural gas, nuclear and renewables.

Changes in international trade and investment with ‘globalization’ have seen many rich countries shift GHG-intensive production to developing countries.

Thus, rich economies have ‘exported’ production of – and responsibility for – GHG emissions for what they consume. Instead, developed countries make more from ‘high value’ services, many related to finance, requiring far less energy.

Export emissions, shift blame
Thus, rich countries have effectively adopted then World Bank chief economist Larry Summers’ proposal to export toxic waste to the poorest countries where the ‘opportunity cost’ of human life was presumed to be lowest!

His original proposal has since become a development strategy for the age of globalization! Thus, polluting industries – including GHG-emitting production processes – have been relocated – together with labour-intensive industries – to the global South.

Although kept out of the final published version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, over 40% of developing country GHG emissions were due to export production for developed countries.

Such ‘emission exports’ by rich OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries increased rapidly from 2002, after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). These peaked at 2,278 million metric tonnes in 2006, i.e., 17% of emissions from production, before falling to 1,577 million metric tonnes.

For the OECD, the ‘carbon balance’ is determined by deducting the carbon dioxide equivalent of GHG emissions for imports from those for production, including exports. Annual growth of GHG discharges from making exports was 4.3% faster than for all production emissions.

Thus, the US had eight times more per capita GHG production emissions than India’s in 2019. US per capita emissions were more than thrice China’s, although the world’s most populous country still emits more than any other nation.

With high GHG-emitting products increasingly made in developing countries, rich countries have effectively ‘exported’ their emissions. Consuming such imports, rich economies are still responsible for related GHG emissions.

Change is in the air
Industries emitting carbon have been ‘exported’ – relocated abroad – for their products to be imported for consumption. But the UNFCCC approach to assigning GHG emissions responsibility focuses only on production, ignoring consumption of such imports.

Thus, if responsibility for GHG emissions is also due to consumption, per capita differences between the global North and South are even greater.

In contrast, the OECD wants to distribute international corporate income tax revenue according to consumption, not production. Thus, contradictory criteria are used, as convenient, to favour rich economies, shaping both tax and climate discourses and rules.

While domestic investments in China have become much ‘greener’, foreign direct investment by companies from there are developing coal mines and coal-fired powerplants abroad, e.g., in Indonesia and Vietnam.

If not checked, such FDI will put other developing countries on the worst fossil fuel energy pathway, historically emulating the rich economies of the global North. A Global Green New Deal would instead enable a ‘big push’ to ‘front-load’ investments in renewable energy.

This should enable adequate financing of much more equitable development while ensuring sustainability. Such an approach would not only address national-level inequalities, but also international disparities.

China now produces over 70% of photovoltaic solar panels annually, but is effectively blocked from exporting them abroad. In a more cooperative world, developing countries’ lower-cost – more affordable – production of the means to generate renewable energy would be encouraged.

Instead, higher energy costs now – due to supply disruptions following the Ukraine war and Western sanctions – are being used by rich countries to retreat further from their inadequate, modest commitments to decelerate global warming.

This retreat is putting the world at greater risk. Already, the international community is being urged to abandon the maximum allowable temperature increase above pre-industrial levels, thus further extending and deepening already unjust North-South relations.

But change is in the air. Investing in and subsidizing renewable energy technologies in developing countries wanting to electrify, can enable them to develop while mitigating global warming.

Hezri A Adnan is adjunct professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

IPS UN Bureau

 

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