Month: December 2023

The U.S. Commerce Department and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Friday $1 million in funding to improve the collection of Arctic climate data.

In a statement, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the U.S. Arctic region — which consists of the state of Alaska — is warming faster than any region in the United States and demands immediate action.

She said the new funding — part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which included money for clean energy development — will provide “data and tools that can build climate resilience and strengthen our economy and national security.”

The $1 million in funding will be used to solicit grant ideas from institutions of higher education, other nonprofits or commercial organizations to help improve climate and data collection, with a focus on Alaskan communities.

In the same statement, NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad said, the call for grant proposals is designed to both gather data and help Alaskan rural and Indigenous communities.

“Providing communities with environmental information that allows them to make informed decisions in the face of a changing climate is the foundation of creating a more climate resilient nation,” he said.

The most recent NOAA National Climate Assessment indicates Alaska is warming at a rate that is two to three times faster than the lower 48 states, and the Arctic as a whole is warming nearly four times faster than the rest of the global average.
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In a letter leaked to news organizations this week, OPEC Secretary-General Haitham Al Ghais urged member nations to reject any agreement from the U.N. climate summit targeting fossil fuels rather than emissions.

In the letter dated Wednesday referencing a draft agreement on climate change action at the 28th U.N. climate conference — known as COP28 — in Dubai, the OPEC leader said, “It seems that the undue and disproportionate pressure against fossil fuels may reach a tipping point with irreversible consequences.”

The letter goes on to say, “I … respectfully urge all esteemed OPEC Member Countries and Non-OPEC Countries participating in the CoC and their distinguished delegations in the COP 28 negotiations to proactively reject any text or formula that targets energy i.e. fossil fuels rather than emissions.”

The contents of the letter were reported Friday by multiple news organizations, including Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Bloomburg, which verified the letter’s authenticity. OPEC declined when asked to comment.

The reports come as negotiations among 197 countries on a final climate summit agreement are underway ahead of a deadline Tuesday, when the conference is scheduled to end.

Fossil fuels — oil, coal and natural gas — have been a focus of the discussions since COP28 opened last week, with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling for an end to their use.

At least 80 countries have called for a COP28 deal that calls for an eventual end to fossil fuel use, as scientists urge ambitious action to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

The focus is on meeting the goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement: keeping global temperature increase this century less than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

At Friday’s climate summit plenary session, COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, from OPEC member nation and summit host United Arab Emirates, said, once again, that a shift away from fossil fuels is “inevitable” and “essential.” He added, though, that any energy transition “must be orderly and responsible.”

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday approved a pair of gene therapies for sickle cell disease, including the first treatment based on the breakthrough CRISPR gene editing technology. 

The agency approved Lyfgenia from bluebird bio, and a separate treatment called Casgevy by partners Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics. 

Both the therapies were approved for people aged 12 years and older. 

The Vertex/CRISPR gene therapy uses the breakthrough gene editing technology that won its inventors the Nobel Prize in 2020. 

Sickle cell disease is a painful, inherited blood disorder that can be debilitating and lead to premature death. It affects an estimated 100,000 people in the United States, most of whom are Black. 

In sickle cell disease, the body makes flawed, sickle-shaped hemoglobin, impairing the ability of red blood cells to properly carry oxygen to the body’s tissues. 

The sickle cells tend to stick together and can block small blood vessels, causing intense pain. It also can lead to strokes and organ failure. 

U.S.-listed shares of CRISPR therapeutics were up 1.6%, while Vertex Pharmaceuticals stock was down 1.4%. Shares of bluebird bio were halted for trading ahead of the news. 

Makers of both the therapies have pitched them as one-time treatments, but data on how long their effect lasts is limited. The only longer-term treatment for sickle cell disease is a bone marrow transplant. 

“I actually am very reticent to call them a cure. I prefer to call them a transformative therapy because patients will still have sickle cell disease on the other side of gene therapy,” said Dr Sharl Azar, medical director of the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

Bluebird bio’s sickle cell therapy is designed to work by inserting modified genes into the body through disabled viruses to help the patient’s red blood cells produce normal hemoglobin. 

For Vertex’s therapy, patients must have stem cells harvested from their bone marrow. The cells are then sent to manufacturing facilities where they are edited using CRISPR/Cas9 technology. Once the cells are incubated, they are infused back into the patient during a month-long hospital stay. 

Both gene therapies can take several months and involve high-dose chemotherapy, but this has potential risks of infertility. 

“Not everybody who undergoes chemotherapy will end up having infertility, but the majority of them will,” said Dr Azar.  

While the risk can be managed by fertility preservation methods like freezing eggs and sperm banking, this is only covered by insurance for cancer patients who undergo chemotherapy and not those receiving gene therapy, said Dr. Azar. 

He said the out-of-pocket expense on it can be as high as $40,000. 

FDA staff in documents released ahead of an October meeting of a panel of independent experts on Vertex’s therapy had also flagged concerns of unintended genomic alterations from the treatment. 

The company plans to assess potential long-term safety risks through a 15-year follow-up study after approval. 

Vertex’s CRISPR therapy is also under an FDA review for another blood disease, transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia, with a decision expected by March 30. 
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Black people make up about 38% of Mississippi’s population, but a new study shows that Black women were four times more likely to die of causes directly related to pregnancy than white women in the state in 2020.

“It is imperative that this racial inequity is not only recognized, but that concerted efforts are made at the institutional, community, and state levels to reduce these disparate outcomes,” wrote Dr. Michelle Owens and Dr. Courtney Mitchell, leaders of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee that conducted the study.

The Mississippi State Department of Health published the findings Wednesday.

The committee said 80% of pregnancy-related deaths in Mississippi between 2016 and 2020 were considered preventable, and cardiovascular disease and hypertension remain top contributors to maternal mortality.

Women need comprehensive primary care before, during and after pregnancy, but many people live in areas where health care services are scarce, Owens and Mitchell wrote.

“A substantial portion of this care is being shouldered by smaller hospitals with limited resources, many of whom are facing possible closure and limiting or discontinuing the provision of obstetrical services, further increasing the burdens borne by the individuals and their communities,” they wrote.

The Maternal Mortality Review Committee was formed in 2017, and its members include physicians, nurses, public health experts and others who work in health care.

The committee found that from 2016 to 2020, Mississippi’s pregnancy-related mortality rate was 35.2 deaths per 100,000 live births. The study did not provide a comparable five-year number for the U.S. but said the national rate was 20.1 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2019 and 32.9 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020.

Mississippi has long been one of the poorest states in the U.S., with some of the highest rates of obesity and heart disease.

A state health department program called Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies offers care management and home visits for pregnant women and for infants who are at risk of having health problems.

“Losing one mother is too many,” Dr. Daniel Edney, the state health officer, said in a news release about the maternal mortality study.

The committee recommended that Mississippi leaders expand Medicaid to people who work in lower-wage jobs that don’t provide private health insurance — a policy proposal that Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has long opposed.

Earlier this year, Reeves signed a law allowing postpartum Medicaid coverage for a full year, up from two months.

Medicaid expansion is optional under the health care overhaul that then-President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010, and Mississippi is one of 10 states that have not taken the option. The non-expansion states have Republican governors, Republican-controlled Legislatures or both.

“Medicaid expansion should be incorporated for rural hospitals to remain open and include access to telehealth services,” the Maternal Mortality Review Committee leaders wrote. “There is a need for rural healthcare facilities to provide higher levels of critical care, recruit and retain adequate providers, and have access to life saving equipment, especially in the most vulnerable areas of the state.”

The study examined deaths that occurred during or within one year after pregnancy. It defined pregnancy-related deaths as those “initiated by pregnancy, or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of pregnancy” and pregnancy-associated deaths as those “from a cause that is not related to pregnancy.”

Pregnancy-related deaths during the five years included 17 homicides and four suicides, plus 26 instances of substance abuse disorder contributing to the maternal death and 30 instances of mental health conditions other than substance abuse disorder contributing to a death.

The study also said obesity contributed to 32 maternal deaths and discrimination contributed to 22. It noted that some pregnancy-related deaths could have more than one contributing factor.

The committee recommended that health care providers develop procedures and training to address maternal patients with severe complaints for the same health concern, including training to eliminate bias or discrimination.
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Environmental watchdogs accused a Mexico-based startup Thursday of violating international trade law by selling a health supplement made from endangered totoaba fish to several countries including the U.S. and China.

Advocates told The Associated Press they also have concerns that the company, The Blue Formula, could be selling fish that is illegally caught in the wild.

The product, which the company describes as “nature’s best kept secret,” is a small sachet of powder containing collagen taken from the fish that is designed to be mixed into a drink.

Under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, to which Mexico and the U.S. are both signatories, any export for sale of totoaba fish is illegal, unless bred in captivity with a particular permit. As a listed protected species, commercial import is also illegal under U.S. trade law.

The environmental watchdog group Cetacean Action Treasury first cited the company in November. Then on Thursday, a coalition of environmental charities — The Center for Biological Diversity, National Resources Defense Council and Animal Welfare Institute — filed a written complaint to CITES.

The Blue Formula did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment.

The company claims on its website to operate “100%” sustainably by sourcing fish from Cygnus Ocean, a farm which has a permit to breed totoaba, and using a portion of their profits to release some farmed fish back into the wild.

However, Cygnus Ocean does not have a permit for commercial export of their farmed fish, according to the environmental groups. The farm also did not immediately respond to a request from the AP for comment.

While the ecological impact of breeding totoaba in captivity is much smaller relative to wild fishing, advocates like Alejandro Olivera, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Mexico representative, fear the company and farm could be used as a front.

“There is no good enforcement of the traceability of totoaba in Mexico,” said Olivera, “so it could be easily used to launder wild totoaba.”

Gillnet fishing for wild totoaba is illegal and one of the leading killers of critically endangered vaquita porpoise, of which recent surveys suggest less than a dozen may exist in the wild.

Gillnetting is driven by the exorbitant price for totoaba bladders in China, where they are sold as a delicacy for as much as gold. The Blue Formula’s supplement costs just under $100 for 200 grams.

In October U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized over $1 million worth of totoaba bladders in Arizona, hidden in a shipment of frozen fish. Roughly as much again was seized in Hong Kong the same month, in transit from Mexico to Thailand.
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NASA celebrates a quarter century of human cooperation in space. Plus, a busy week of space launches, and ‘America’s Dad’ wants you to see the moon like those who’ve been there. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space
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A new optical ground station has been built by the Australian National University to help the U.S. space agency, NASA, and others explore space and safely reach Mars.

The Australian team has developed a new type of space communication using lasers.

Researchers say the system will allow them to connect with satellites and NASA-crewed missions beyond low-Earth orbit.

The project is supported by the Australian Space Agency’s Moon to Mars initiative.

The Australian National University Quantum Optical Ground Station is based at the Mount Stromlo Observatory, near Canberra.

It is a powerful telescope that will support high-speed advanced communications with satellites orbiting at distances from low-Earth orbit to the moon.

Kate Ferguson, associate director for strategic projects at the Australian National University Institute for Space, told VOA current communication systems relying on radio frequencies can be slow and cumbersome.

“I am sure some of us remember the grainy pictures that we got of the moon landing that came from the Apollo era,” Ferguson said. “So, again the current radio frequency systems, they have these much slower data rates and especially over really long distances.  For space exploration those become very slow but with optical communications we will be able to increase the rate of that communication.”

She said the new system, based on powerful lasers that are invisible to the naked eye, will transform communications in space.

“What we are aiming to do is to be able to receive high-definition video from future crewed missions. Not only will that be great for us here on Earth, seeing what is happening with the astronauts on these types of missions, but it will improve the connectivity between those missions,” she said. “And what we are doing here is optical communication, which uses laser beams to communicate and these offer much higher speeds and increased security over the current systems and this is really important for us to be getting that data down and being able to use it here on Earth.”

Scientists say the Australian-developed systems will be compatible with NASA missions.

They say the laser-based technology will improve astronauts’ ability to connect with Earth from the moon and also allow high-definition video to be sent from the moon and Mars.

NASA has said previously that astronauts could be sent on a mission to the red planet by the mid-to-late 2030s.

 
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Facebook and Instagram fail to protect underage users from exposure to child sexual abuse material and let adults solicit pornographic imagery from them, New Mexico’s attorney general alleges in a lawsuit that follows an undercover online investigation.

“Our investigation into Meta’s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” Attorney General Raul Torrez said in a statement Wednesday.

The civil lawsuit filed late Tuesday against Meta Platforms Inc. in state court also names its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, as a defendant.

In addition, the suit claims Meta “harms children and teenagers through the addictive design of its platform, degrading users’ mental health, their sense of self-worth and their physical safety,” Torrez’s office said in a statement.

Those claims echo others in a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states, including California and New York, against Meta that alleges Instagram and Facebook include features deliberately designed to hook children, contributing to the youth mental health crisis and leading to depression, anxiety and eating disorders. New Mexico was not a party to that lawsuit.

Investigators in New Mexico created decoy accounts of children 14 years and younger that Torrez’s office said were served sexually explicit images even when the child expressed no interest in them. State prosecutors claim that Meta let dozens of adults find, contact and encourage children to provide sexually explicit and pornographic images.

The accounts also received recommendations to join unmoderated Facebook groups devoted to facilitating commercial sex, investigators said, adding that Meta also let its users find, share and sell “an enormous volume of child pornography.”

“Mr. Zuckerberg and other Meta executives are aware of the serious harm their products can pose to young users, and yet they have failed to make sufficient changes to their platforms that would prevent the sexual exploitation of children,” Torrez said, accusing Meta’s executives of prioritizing “engagement and ad revenue over the safety of the most vulnerable members of our society.”

Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, did not directly respond to the New Mexico lawsuit’s allegations, but said it works hard to protect young users with a serious commitment of resources.

“We use sophisticated technology, hire child safety experts, report content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and share information and tools with other companies and law enforcement, including state attorneys general, to help root out predators,” the company said. “In one month alone, we disabled more than half a million accounts for violating our child safety policies.”

Company spokesman Andy Stone pointed to a company report detailing the millions of tips Facebook and Instagram sent to the National Center in the third quarter of 2023 — including 48,000 involving inappropriate interactions that could include an adult soliciting child sexual abuse material directly from a minor or attempting to meet with one in person.

Critics, including former employees, have long complained that Meta’s largely automated content moderation systems are ill-equipped to identify and adequately eliminate abusive behavior on its platforms.
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Iran said Wednesday that it had sent a capsule into orbit capable of carrying animals as it prepares for human missions in coming years. 

A report by the official IRNA news agency quoted Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour as saying the capsule was launched 130 kilometers into orbit. 

Zarepour said the launch of the 500-kilogram capsule was aimed at sending Iranian astronauts to space in coming years. He did not say whether any animals were in the capsule. 

He told state TV that Iran planned to send astronauts into space by 2029 after further tests involving animals. 

State TV showed footage of a rocket named Salman carrying the capsule. 

Iran occasionally announces successful launches of satellites and other spacecraft. In September, Iran said it sent a data-collecting satellite into space. In 2013, Iran said it sent a monkey into space and returned it successfully. 

Reports said the country’s Defense Ministry built and launched the Salman rocket, while the capsule was built by the Iranian civil space agency. Media reports did not say where the launch took place. Iran usually makes launches from Imam Khomenei Space Center in northern Semnan province. 

Iran says its satellite program is for scientific research and other civilian applications. The U.S. and other Western countries have long been suspicious of the program because the same technology can be used to develop long-range missiles. 

In 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it put the Islamic republic’s first military satellite into orbit, unveiling what experts described as a secret space program.
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After a first-day blur of rare quick action and agreement, negotiators at a critical United Nations climate summit finished their first week Wednesday in a more familiar place: the murky middle where momentum and roadblocks intertwine.

“Negotiations … are a mixed picture right now. We see big differences between individual states in some areas,” German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said, “but there is a will to make progress.”

U.S. Special Envoy John Kerry, said, “We have done a lot in this first week, and we’ve accomplished real things.”

Proponents who are calling for a ground-shifting phase-out of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal have hope for the first time in years, but also see where the possibility could be torpedoed. Key issues of financial help for poor nations to decarbonize and how to adapt to warming need much more work, officials said.

That contrasts with the first day when the conference — called COP28 — put into effect a climate compensation fund and started seeing its coffers grow to more than $720 million.

U.N. Climate Secretary Simon Stiell on Wednesday warned against putting “a tick on the box” for that victory and thinking it solves the multitrillion-dollar problem of financial aid that’s needed to help cut emissions worldwide.

“We need COP to deliver a bullet train to speed up climate action. We currently have an old caboose chugging over rickety tracks,” Stiell said.

Adnan Amin, the No. 2 official in the COP and a veteran U.N. diplomat, was a bit more optimistic, saying all negotiations have ups and downs. This one, he said, is in that time when “there’s still a buzz. There’s still positivity.”

Discussions have been focused on the so-called Global Stocktake — a status of where nations are with meeting their climate goals to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times and how they can get there. On Tuesday, negotiators produced a new draft of the text, but it had so many possibilities in its 24 pages that it didn’t give much of a hint of what will be agreed upon when the session ends next week.

Negotiators for 197 countries are going over the document word by word to see what they can live with and what they can’t, Amin said. “They have so many demands and needs. But I think it provides a very good basis for moving forward.”

Cedric Schuster, the chair of the Association of Small Island States, said failing on the Global Stocktake would “make it significantly more difficult to leave this COP saying we can achieve the 1.5 C limit.” He said major emitters and developed countries need to take the lead and ramp up efforts to phase out fossil fuels.

“If we fail, the consequences will be catastrophic,” he said.

While U.N. officials highlight worries about finance and adaptation, many at the Dubai conference are focused on language about what to do about fossil fuels. Burning coal, oil and natural gas are the chief causes of climate change. For the first time in nearly three decades of talks, the idea of getting rid of all three of them is on the agenda and a serious possibility.

“We have seen options about fossil fuel phase-out in the text. And while it’s historic to have them, they’re not enough,” said environmental activist Romain Ioualalen of Oil Change International. He pointed to 106 nations signing a document calling for a phase-out, which was mentioned by many world leaders when they made speeches in the first few days.

“The situation we’re in right now, it was unthinkable just three COPs ago to have these debates on the phase-out of all fossil fuels,” Ioualalen said. “There’s definitely momentum in the conversation. There’s definitely opposition, of course. And that’s what’s to be expected. But that’s what we need to solve.

“We’ve never been closer to an agreement for sure,” he said.
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Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended his handling of COVID-19 on Wednesday at a public inquiry into the pandemic, saying his government “got some things wrong” but did its best.

Johnson began two days of questioning under oath by lawyers for the judge-led inquiry about his initial reluctance to impose a national lockdown in early 2020 and other fateful decisions.

Johnson opened his testimony with an apology “for the pain and the loss and the suffering of the COVID victims,” though not for any of his own actions. Four people stood up in court as he spoke, holding signs saying: “The Dead can’t hear your apologies,” before being escorted out by security staff.

“Inevitably, in the course of trying to handle a very, very difficult pandemic in which we had to balance appalling harms on either side of the decision, we may have made mistakes,” Johnson said. “Inevitably, we got some things wrong. I think we were doing our best at the time.”

Johnson had arrived at the inquiry venue at daybreak, several hours before he was due to take the stand, avoiding a protest by relatives of some of those victims.

Among those wanting answers from the inquiry are families of some of the more than 230,000 people in the U.K. who died after contracting the virus. A group gathered outside the office building where the inquiry was set, some holding pictures of their loved ones. A banner declared: “Let the bodies pile high” — a statement attributed to Johnson by an aide. Another sign said: “Johnson partied while people died.”

Johnson was pushed out of office by his own Conservative Party in mid-2022 after multiple ethics scandals, including the revelation that he and staff members held parties in the prime minister’s Downing Street offices in 2020 and 2021, flouting the government’s lockdown restrictions.

Former colleagues, aides and advisers have painted an unflattering picture of Johnson and his government over weeks of testimony.

Former Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance said Johnson was “bamboozled” by science. In diaries that have been seen as evidence, Vallance also said Johnson was “obsessed with older people accepting their fate.” Former adviser Dominic Cummings, now a fierce opponent of Johnson, said the then-prime minister asked scientists whether blowing a hair dryer up his nose could kill the virus. 

Former senior civil servant Helen McNamara described a “toxic,” macho culture inside Johnson’s government, and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, the country’s top civil servant, called Johnson and his inner circle “basically feral.”

Johnson defended his government, saying it contained “challenging” characters “whose views about each other might not be fit to print, but who got an awful lot done.”

The U.K. has one of the highest COVID-19 death tolls in Europe, with the virus recorded as a cause of death for more than 232,000 people.

Johnson said he was “not sure” whether his government’s decisions had caused excess deaths. He said deciding when to impose lockdowns and other restrictions had been “painful.”

“People point, quite rightly, to the loss of education, the economic damage, the missed cancer and cardiac appointments, and all the other costs,” he said. “When it came to the balance of the need to protect the public and protect the (health service), and the damage done by lockdowns, it was incredibly difficult.”

Johnson agreed in late 2021 to hold a public inquiry after heavy pressure from bereaved families. The probe, led by retired Judge Heather Hallett, is expected to take three years to complete, though interim reports will be issued starting next year.

The inquiry is divided into four sections, with the current phase focusing on political decision-making. The first stage, which concluded in July, looked at the country’s preparedness for the pandemic.

Johnson has submitted a written evidence statement to the inquiry but has not handed over some 5,000 WhatsApp messages from several key weeks between February and June 2020. They were on a phone Johnson was told to stop using when it emerged that the number had been publicly available online for years. Johnson later said he’d forgotten the password to unlock it.

A Johnson spokesman said the former prime minister had not deleted any messages but a “technical issue” meant some had not been recovered. 
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Countries need to increase their taxes on alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, saying too few states were using tax to incentivize healthier behaviors.

After studying taxation rates, the WHO said the average global tax rate on such “unhealthy products” was low, and hiking taxes could result in healthier populations.

“WHO recommends that excise tax should apply to all sugar-sweetened beverages [SSBs] and alcoholic beverages,” the U.N. health agency said in a statement.

Excise taxes target particular goods and services.

The WHO said 2.6 million people a year die from drinking alcohol, while more than eight million die from having an unhealthy diet.

“Implementing tax on alcohol and SSBs will reduce these deaths,” it said.

It would not only help cut down use of these products but also give companies an incentive to make healthier products, it added.

The WHO said that although 108 countries do impose some taxation on SSBs, globally, excise taxes on average represent just 6.6 percent of the price of a soda.

Half of those countries also tax water, the WHO noted — something not recommended by the U.N. agency.

“Taxing unhealthy products creates healthier populations. It has a positive ripple effect across society — less disease and debilitation and revenue for governments to provide public services,” said Rudiger Krech, the WHO’s health promotion director.

“In the case of alcohol, taxes also help prevent violence and road traffic injuries.”

The Geneva-based WHO on Tuesday released a manual on alcohol tax policy and administration for its 194 member states.

It said minimum pricing, combined with taxation, could curb consumption of cheap booze and reduce drink-related hospitalizations, deaths, traffic violations and crimes.

“A significant body of research has demonstrated that people who engage in heavy episodic drinking tend to drink the cheapest available alcoholic beverages,” it said.

Some 148 countries apply national excise taxes on alcoholic drinks.

“However, wine is exempted from excise taxes in at least 22 countries, most of which are in the European region,” the WHO said.

Globally, on average, the excise tax in the price of the most sold brand of beer is 17.2 percent, while for the most sold brand of the most sold type of spirits, it is 26.5 percent, the organization claimed.

“A pressing concern is that alcoholic beverages have, over time, consistently become more affordable,” said WHO assistant director-general Ailan Li.

“But increasing affordability can be curbed using well-designed alcohol tax and pricing policies.”

The manual said the drinks industry often argues that alcohol taxes hit the poorest hardest — but said this ignores the “disproportionate harm per liter for alcohol consumers in lower socioeconomic groups.”
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Countries at the COP28 climate conference are considering calling for a formal phase-out of fossil fuels as part of the U.N. summit’s final deal to tackle global warming, a draft negotiating text seen on Tuesday shows.

The proposal is set to spark heated debate among the nearly 200 countries at the two-week conference in Dubai, with some Western and climate-vulnerable states pushing for the language to be used and many oil and gas producers keen to leave it out.

Research published on Tuesday showed global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are set to hit a record high this year, fueling concerns among scientists that efforts to combat climate change are not enough to avert its worst impacts.

The draft of what could be the final agreement from COP28, released by the U.N. climate body on Tuesday, proposed “an orderly and just phase-out of fossil fuels” which if adopted would mark the first global deal to end the oil age.

On the COP28 main stage, the CEOs of several major energy firms argued in favour of oil and gas, highlighting their progress in areas such as cutting the greenhouse gas methane.

“We are big guys and we can do big things. We can deliver results and we will have to report them very soon,” said Jean Paul Prates, CEO of Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras. “The energy transition will only be valid if it’s a fair transition,” he added.

At least 2,400 fossil fuel lobbyists registered for this year’s summit, an analysis of U.N. registration data published by Kick Big Polluters Out showed, outnumbering the delegates from the 10 most climate vulnerable countries combined.

Climate activists staged several small protests against the presence of the fossil fuel industry.

The Marshall Islands, meanwhile, unveiled a national plan to adapt to rising sea levels, a recognition that the impacts of warming are already hitting its shores.

“While we hope for a world where the world fulfils the promise of the Paris Agreement to contain climate change, as an extremely climate vulnerable country we need to be realistic and honest about the difficult path ahead,” said Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, the country’s climate envoy.

Negotiating text

The draft text for a COP28 final deal includes three options for dealing with fossil fuels.

The first is “an orderly and just phase-out”. In U.N. parlance, the word “just” suggests wealthy nations with a long history of burning fossil fuels would phase out fastest.

The second calls for “accelerating efforts towards phasing out unabated fossil fuels”. And a third would be to avoid mentioning a phase-out at all.

The United States, the 27 countries of the European Union and climate-vulnerable small island states are pushing for a fossil fuel phase-out to drive the deep CO2 emissions reductions scientists say are needed this decade.

Even so, none of the world’s major oil and gas-producing countries have plans to eventually stop drilling for those fuels, according to the Net Zero Tracker, an independent data consortium including Oxford University.

“We’re not talking about turning the tap off overnight,” German Climate Envoy Jennifer Morgan said. “What you’re seeing here is a real battle about what energy system of the future we are going to build together.”

Big producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia have resisted past proposals for a phase-out.

David Waskow, director of World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative, said he does not think a COP28 outcome was possible without a clear mandate for moving away from global reliance on oil, gas and coal.

“I don’t think we’re going to leave Dubai without some clear language and some clear direction on shifting away from fossil fuels,” he added.

The draft text also includes language calling for the scaling up of carbon capture technology, which is likely to draw pushback from some countries worried such nascent technologies are being used to justify the continued use of fossil fuels.

Fossil fuel emissions rising

On the sidelines of COP28, U.S. special climate envoy John Kerry launched an international plan involving 35 countries to boost nuclear fusion, a nascent technology that would seek to harness the intense process that powers the sun.

“There is potential in fusion to revolutionize our world,” Kerry said.

Fusion is among a number of ambitious and sometimes unlikely ideas aimed at helping speed decarbonization.

Countries are expected to emit a total 36.8 billion metric tons of CO2 from fossil fuels in 2023, a 1.1% increase from last year’s record, according to the Global Carbon Budget report by scientists from more than 90 institutions.

The emissions performance pulls the world further away from preventing global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, it said.

For daily comprehensive coverage on COP28 in your inbox, sign up for the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter here.
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