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07 October 20
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Homeland Security Wants to Erase Its History of Misconduct
Alice Speri, The Intercept
Speri writes: "Agencies under the Department of Homeland Security have been accused of performing forced hysterectomies on detained immigrants, deporting witnesses to systemic sexual abuse in immigration detention, and defying federal court orders to halt deportations."
gencies under the Department of Homeland Security have been accused of performing forced hysterectomies on detained immigrants, deporting witnesses to systemic sexual abuse in immigration detention, and defying federal court orders to halt deportations. They have separated children from their families at the border, used the Covid-19 pandemic as justification to turn them back altogether, killed people on both sides of the border, and abducted protesters against police violence from the streets of an American city.
As The Intercept has reported, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, two of DHS’s most abuse-ridden agencies, have long resisted public scrutiny of their record by stonewalling calls for transparency and defying demands for accountability, including by Congress. But a full accounting of DHS agencies’ misconduct may be impossible not just in real time but well into the future. The Border Patrol has petitioned the National Archives and Records Administration to designate thousands of its internal records documenting abuse as “temporary,” slating them for destruction in as early as four years. A similar request by ICE was granted last year.
When unidentified federal agents later determined to be Border Patrol agents dragged protesters into unmarked vans in Portland, Oregon, this summer, U.S. citizens got a rare glimpse of the impunity with which the agency treats migrants and their advocates on the border. With 44,000 agents and a budget of $17 billion, CBP is the largest law enforcement agency in the United States. It has also long been one of its most lawless — with a long history of corruption, neglect, racism, violence, and sexual abuse.
The Border Patrol’s proposal to the National Archives, which makes decisions about the retention of U.S. government documents, would designate as temporary all records regarding CBP’s dealings with DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: a recipient of complaints of civil rights abuses from across the department. These records include reports on concluded investigations, sworn witness statements, and transcripts of interviews — material that constitutes invaluable testimony of CBP’s conduct. The proposal would also mark as temporary internal records concerning administrative and criminal investigations of CBP agents, as well as records collected by CBP in connection to the Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA. Designating these records as temporary would then allow the agency to schedule their destruction — in as little as four years for the complaints of civil rights violations, and in 25 years for the remaining records.
“It’s a pretty striking proposal: It would erase a lot of historical memory of CBP abuses that are very systemic in the agency,” Jesse Franzblau, a senior policy analyst at the National Immigrant Justice Center, told The Intercept. “An institution that’s supposed to be in charge of preserving historical memory and historical record of agencies of the U.S. government shouldn’t be considering a proposal that would allow an agency — and particularly an agency with such dark history of abuse — to be able to destroy records that encompass really important, really critical, historical value.”
Archival records are all the more important in the case of agencies, like DHS, known to delay and deny public records request and to skirt legislators’ questions during officials hearings. “There’s this broader transparency issue of highly secretive agencies using different tricks and tactics to try to shield their agency from accountability,” said Franzblau. “This is another avenue that the agency is taking to try to shield themselves from accountability and try to erase this important history.”
The CBP records designation proposal notes that documents can only be destroyed after a case is closed. But the vast majority of misconduct allegations are closed without ever being investigated. In 2017, for instance, the American Immigration Council found that CBP took “no action” against agents accused of misconduct in 95.9 percent of the incidents for which it received complaints. The proposal would only impact CBP’s own records of civil rights complaints — not any copies held by DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, which have their own retention schedule. But as The Intercept has reported, the handling of misconduct allegations at DHS is riddled with inconsistencies, and many complaints filed with individual agencies accused of misconduct never make it out of the agency itself. DHS’s Office of Inspector General, which is tasked with independently reviewing the department’s various agencies, also has a poor record of investigating misconduct.
Dozens of immigrant rights and government accountability groups, as well as a number of academics, have condemned CBP’s proposal and called on the National Archives to reject it. “An agency rife with abuse should not be allowed to purge its own paper trail of wrongdoing,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a statement. “CBP misconduct often only becomes public via leaks, investigative reporting, or lawsuits, meaning the loss of internal records could forever bury unknown abuses.”
“Given how terrible DHS is in general, it’s obviously very important that they not be allowed to get away from any kind of oversight and transparency, much less on these misconduct and similar types of records,” Freddy Martinez, a policy analyst with the transparency group Open the Government, told The Intercept. “These records should be kept permanently.”
A spokesperson for the National Archives wrote in an email to The Intercept that the agency’s appraisal staff had recommended approval of CBP’s proposal to designate the records as temporary, but noted that scheduling destruction was a separate process currently under review. The previously approved destruction of ICE records is currently on hold, pending litigation.
“The records scheduling process involves an ongoing collaboration between NARA and the agency that drafts the schedule,” the spokesperson said. “The [CBP] schedule has not yet been approved by NARA.”
DHS did not respond to a request for comment.
Erasing History
In their review of CBP’s proposal, National Archives officials referred to the designation of ICE’s abuse complaints records as temporary to justify marking CBP’s complaints records the same way. The officials argued that “these records do not have value beyond their functional use for tracking complaints and ensuring fulfillment of obligations.” Archives officials also determined that CBP’s internal investigations records, including cases of alleged corruption, mismanagement, off-duty misconduct, and misuse of government-issued weapons, “are not of significant enough historical interest to warrant preservation in the National Archives.”
But scholars who rely on these records to reconstruct the history of government agencies decades after it has taken place strongly disagree.
“These records constitute the primary source of information regarding the issue of CBP misconduct,” Yael Schacher, a senior U.S. advocate at Refugees International and author of a forthcoming book about the history of asylum in the U.S., wrote in a public comment to the National Archives. “Without them, an entire chapter of CBP history would be erased from the public record.”
Schacher pointed to the recent body of scholarly work investigating CBP’s precursor — the Immigration and Naturalization Service — as evidence of the public’s growing interest in the abuse of power and culture of impunity that has long dominated immigration enforcement in this country. “If these records are not designated permanent, it will be impossible to pursue scholarship on precisely those topics gaining increasing attention by historians of immigration,” she wrote.
“It’s no surprise that Trump officials want to destroy evidence of their own misconduct. But it’s really a shock to see the National Archives ignoring its own policies and precedents in allowing them to get away with it,” said Matthew Connelly, a history professor at Columbia University who studies government secrecy.
Connelly noted that the “mad rush” to destroy government records long preceded the Trump administration, and acknowledged that the National Archives’ resources have shrunk over the years just as the number of records they are responsible for has ballooned. But Connelly also denounced the destruction of significant government records that has taken place with no congressional scrutiny and little public debate.
“[The National Archives] has been so underfunded and undermined for so long that it is losing its capacity to protect records of obvious and enduring historical importance,” he said. “As scholars we are trying to speak out and stop them. But it’s been years since Congress has held even one hearing, and we need our representatives in Washington to start exercising real oversight.”
Under previous administrations, the CIA issued a number of records destruction proposals, shielding some of its own abuses from future review. But in recent years, there was a clear uptick in the number of records destruction requests file by DHS agencies dealing with immigration enforcement, noted Franzblau, of the National Immigrant Justice Center. “There’s just a litany of abuses that CBP officials have carried out, particularly in the last few years,” he said, who noted the documents are not only of interest to historians but also crucial for human rights investigations and legal actions. “Records relating to those incidents will be critically important in the years going forward for accountability measures, for lawsuits against these agencies, for justice for victims of these abuses.”
The CBP proposal is particularly troubling because of “the invisibility of what CBP does,” said Martinez, of Open the Government, noting that the Border Patrol’s authority stretches far from the border itself to cover an area of the country that includes two-thirds of the U.S. population.
“Most people don’t see CBP misconduct because they physically abuse people in the desert, in Arizona; they disappear people in solitary confinement for speaking out about their conditions in their facilities,” Martinez said. “It’s not like policing in a major city. Most people don’t go to the border to see what CBP does on a day-to-day basis.”
Sen. Kamala Harris. (photo: Getty)
Report: One Quarter of Kamala Harris Announcement Coverage Included Racist or Sexist Stereotyping
Rebecca Morin, USA TODAY
Morin writes: "The announcement of Sen. Kamala Harris as the Democratic vice presidential nominee [...] was met with more racist and sexist stereotyping in media coverage compared to both major parties' 2016 vice presidential nominees, according to a new report."
One quarter of coverage of Harris included racist or sexist tropes, such as describing the senator as too "uncooperative" or "ambitious," according to the report from Time’s Up Now, the political arm of TIME’S UP, which advocates to end harassment and discrimination in the workplace.
“It demonstrates with numbers how normal we think it is for white men to run for these offices, and how unusual or subject to criticism we think it is for a woman of color to run for those offices,” said Tina Tchen, president and CEO of TIME’S UP Now. “You are therefore not talking about her actual qualifications for the job, or her position for the job, and that's what handicaps women candidates, it's what handicaps women leaders in multiple dimensions, not just in the political sphere.”
The report, which was released one day before Harris takes the debate stage against Vice President Mike Pence for the vice presidential debate in Utah, analyzed the two weeks of coverage after Democratic nominee Joe Biden announced Harris as his running mate. The coverage was compared to coverage of Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2016, and then-Republican vice presidential nominee Pence.
Harris’ nomination was historic, and as a result, 61% of the coverage surrounding Harris mentioned her gender and race, compared to the 5% of coverage that mentioned Kaine or Pence’s gender and race in 2016. Instead, Kaine and Pence’s religious backgrounds were discussed more, in 20% and 17% of coverage, respectively, compared to Harris at just 1%.
Before Harris, who is the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, was announced as the vice presidential nominee, several women leaders criticized the coverage surrounding the women, particularly Black women, on Biden's list for his running mate.
Harris’ ancestry dominated 36% of the coverage surrounding her nomination. Her professional background and achievements followed at 31%. Comparatively, 35% of the coverage of Pence and Kaine focused on the two
Among the racist and sexist language used in coverage of Harris, the report found that the “angry black woman” trope was used the most (13%), "largely fueled by reporting of President Donald Trump’s comments calling Sen. Harris 'nasty,' 'mad' and 'mean.' " That was followed by 7% of the coverage that used citizenship or racial identity language, such as reporting on “birtherism” conspiracy theories and Harris’ ancestry. Six percent of coverage used language that oversexualized or underqualified the Senator’s merits, the report found.
Tchen warned that coverage focusing on coded language, like "ambitious" or "phony," creates a negative image in the mind of voters.
“When they're used against a woman of color running for high office, that could plug into our existing preconceived prejudices and stereotypes about women,” Tchen said. “When attached to a man, the word ambitious is actually a good quality. You’re seen as a leader and strong. And a woman is seen as out of her place.”
The vice presidential debate will be held Wednesday at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
Pastor Ben McBride spoke about the importance of Oscar Grant receiving justice for the acts of police brutality that occurred at the Fruitvale Bart Station 11 years ago, on October 5, 2020, in Oakland, CA. (photo: Nina Riggio/San Francisco Chronicle)
California DA to Reopen Oscar Grant Case
Michael Williams, San Francisco Chronicle
Williams writes: "Alameda County prosecutors said Monday they would reopen their investigation into the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer."
lameda County prosecutors said Monday they would reopen their investigation into the fatal shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer more than a decade ago, a stunning decision that came amid a national reckoning over police shootings of Black people.“We are re-opening our investigation,” Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said in a statement. “I have assigned a team of lawyers to look back into the circumstances that caused the death of Oscar Grant.”
O’Malley did not say what part of the shooting at the Fruitvale Station in Oakland she would re-examine. Johannes Mehserle, the BART officer who pulled the trigger on New Year’s Day in 2009, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2010 and served a jail sentence. Mehserle had said he thought he was shocking Grant with a Taser, not shooting his pistol.
Other officers involved in the arrest and shooting were not charged, a continued source of grievance for Grant’s family. One officer, Anthony Pirone, pulled the 22-year-old Grant from a train aggressively and knelt on his neck before he was shot, according to court testimony and video of the incident.
Pirone was fired but never charged in the case, which was captured on video and became an early rallying point for calls to end police brutality against Black people.
O’Malley’s announcement came as Grant’s family gathered Monday in front of the Fruitvale BART Station to demand O’Malley charge Pirone.
“Oscar was denied his full justice,” said Grant’s mother, the Rev. Wanda Johnson, under a mural of her son at the station where he was killed. “… I am calling for the district attorney to bring charges against (Pirone) and charge him for his actions that escalated — instead of de-escalating the situation — and caused the loss of my son’s life.”
After O’Malley’s announcement, Johnson said she was “grateful that O’Malley re-opened the case, that she kept her word from years ago when she said she would.”
Johnson questioned whether that decision would have come had the family not held the news conference Monday.
“I think maybe she thought that we might’ve forgotten,” Johnson said. “Why else would you make this announcement, 11 years later?”
Johnson said she wants Pirone to be charged with accessory to murder.
Pirone’s lawyer Bill Rapoport died in 2018. Pirone did not answer a phone number listed under his name.
The incident began on a BART train. Grant was on his way home from San Francisco, surrounded by friends and packed among New Year’s revelers, when he fought with another passenger. Police were called, and Grant and four friends were detained by Pirone at Fruitvale.
Court testimony and video showed that Pirone pulled Grant and his friends off the train so aggressively that other riders loudly objected. Pirone got physical at least two more times with Grant, kneeing him and pulling him violently to the concrete platform. At one point, apparently angry at being called a profane name, Pirone leaned in close to Grant and shouted back at him, “Bitch-ass n—, right? Bitch-ass n—, right?”
After Pirone and Grant shouted profanities at each other, Pirone told Mehserle — who had arrived after driving to the station in a patrol car — to arrest Grant for resisting, announcing that “this motherf—er is going to jail.”
After being instructed to arrest Grant and one of his friends, Mehserle struggled to handcuff Grant while forcing him from his knees onto his chest. After about 10 seconds, Mehserle — who later testified he feared Grant might pull a gun, though he was unarmed — unholstered his service pistol, stood up and fired a single shot into Grant’s back.
A BART internal investigation found Pirone lied repeatedly to investigators, telling them he felt he was “fighting for my life” when in fact he was the aggressor.
“Pirone was, in large part, responsible for setting the events in motion that created a chaotic and tense situation on the platform, setting the stage, even if inadvertent, for the shooting of Oscar Grant,” the 2009 report concluded.
The report cited Pirone’s “repeated, unreasonable and unnecessary use of force,” his “manifest lack of veracity” and his use of the word “n—” while arguing with Grant in recommending the officer’s firing.
Attorney John Burris, who has represented family members and friends of Oscar Grant in multiple federal civil rights lawsuits, acknowledged that this is an unusual move for O’Malley, who in the past was not known for aggressively prosecuting police officers. Last month, O’Malley charged a San Leandro police officer with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of Steven Taylor at a Walmart earlier this year. That officer, Jason Fletcher, was the first officer in Alameda County to be charged in an on-duty shooting since Mehserle.
Burris has long advocated for Pirone to be prosecuted for use of force, because he took Grant’s friend Michael Greer to the ground with a leg sweep and got physical with Grant multiple times.
“I don’t see her (O’Malley) prosecuting (Pirone) for murder,” Burris said. “The question is whether the statute of limitations had run on the issue of force — the beating of these two guys.
“Pirone is the instigator of this entire event. It was his actions that caused the entire series of events to occur.”
As attorney general, Jeff Sessions enforced a 'zero tolerance' policy on immigration that separated children from their parents. (photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times)
'We Need to Take Away Children,' No Matter How Young, Justice Dept Officials Said
Michael D. Shear, Katie Benner and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times
Excerpt: "The five U.S. attorneys along the border with Mexico, including three appointed by President Trump, recoiled in May 2018 against an order to prosecute all undocumented immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents."
Top department officials were “a driving force” behind President Trump’s child separation policy, a draft investigation report said.
They told top Justice Department officials they were “deeply concerned” about the children’s welfare.
But the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, made it clear what Mr. Trump wanted on a conference call later that afternoon, according to a two-year inquiry by the Justice Department’s inspector general into Mr. Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy.
“We need to take away children,” Mr. Sessions told the prosecutors, according to participants’ notes. One added in shorthand: “If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, arrives at the Capitol for a vote with her new daughter, Maile. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
Sen Tammy Duckworth: Block Supreme Court Pick Who Thinks 'My Daughters Shouldn't Even Exist'
Sarah McCammon, NPR
McCammon writes: "A Democratic U.S. senator who has spoken openly about motherhood and giving birth at age 50 is asking her Republican colleagues to reconsider their support for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett in light of the judge's ties to an organization that has publicly opposed some types of fertility treatments."
In a letter to her colleagues, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois describes the role of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, in helping her conceive her two daughters, now 5 and 2. In 2018, Duckworth famously brought her newborn daughter, Maile, on the Senate floor after lobbying for a rules change.
In the letter, Duckworth describes Barrett as someone who "appears to believe that my daughters shouldn't even exist" and says, "I write to each of you today, and especially to my Republican colleagues who cooed and cuddled Maile when she first visited the Capitol, in hopes that you will fully consider the very real impact your vote on this unprecedented nomination could have on those Americans hoping to start families of their own."
The letter comes in response to reports that first appeared last week in The Guardian that Barrett and her husband, Jesse, had signed an ad in 2006 in the South Bend (Ind.) Tribune from an organization known then as St. Joseph County Right to Life.
That ad called for putting "an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade" – the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide. It urged readers to "defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death."
The group, now part of an organization called Right to Life Michiana, is based in South Bend, where Barrett has worked as a law professor at Notre Dame University. In an interview with The Guardian, Executive Director Jackie Appleman said her organization supports criminal penalties for doctors who perform abortion, and for doctors who discard embryos as part of IVF treatments.
"Whether embryos are implanted in the woman and then selectively reduced or it's done in a petri dish and then discarded, you're still ending a new human life at that point and we do oppose that," Appleman told The Guardian.
She added that "at this point we are not supportive of criminalizing the women."
Reached by phone by NPR, Appleman declined to comment but pointed to a National Review article in which officials from Right to Life Michiana say that Barrett and other signers of the letter may not have been aware of the full content of the ad before it was published. The appearance of Barrett's name in the ad has drawn criticism from abortion-rights advocates who warn that, if confirmed, she'd likely vote to overturn Supreme Court precedent guaranteeing abortion rights.
But Duckworth's warnings to her colleagues go further. In an interview with NPR, Duckworth said she hopes Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee will bring up the implications of Barrett's views for fertility treatments and other types of reproductive health care, including contraception, during her upcoming confirmation hearings.
Duckworth said she wants her Republican colleagues to understand fully the implications of their vote.
"I think many people don't realize that these positions where life begins at the fertilization of an egg would actually rule out IVF," she said.
Barrett's defenders have pointed to comments she made during her 2017 confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee for her position as a federal appeals court judge in which she said that the law, not her personal views, would dictate how she rules in cases.
Thousands rallied outside the court, holding banners reading 'Fascism, Never Again' and 'Freedom for the People, Death to Fascism.' (photo: Yorgos Karahalis/AP)
'Historic Verdict': Celebrations as Greece Convicts Golden Dawn
Katy Fallon, Al Jazeera
Fallon writes: "As a landmark trial spanning more than five years concluded, Golden Dawn was found guilty of four charges - significantly of being a criminal organization."
Activists and experts welcome landmark move to criminalise group as positive first step against European fascism.
ollowing guilty verdicts against the Golden Dawn group over a series of crimes including murder, Athens has seen a day of jubilation, tears and tear gas.
Once the third-largest party in Greece, the leadership of Golden Dawn, including its leader Nikos Michaloliakos and current MEP Ioannis Lagos, now face lengthy prison sentences.
Giorgos Roupakias, a self-professed follower of Golden Dawn, was also found guilty of the murder of anti-racism campaigner and rapper Pavlos Fyssas, known as “Killah P”, and Golden Dawn members were also found guilty of the attempted murder of a group of Egyptian fishermen in Athens in 2012.
Wednesday marks an historic day for the country, which saw the biggest trial of self-professed fascists since the Nuremberg trials.
About 10,000 people gathered outside the court to hear the verdict, hoping for judges to find the 68 people on trial guilty.
Police buses were parked bumper-to-bumper outside the court to prevent any of the protesters from getting near the building, but the atmosphere outside was largely peaceful.
A moment of quiet came over the crowds as the news emerged – first that Roupakias had been found guilty of murdering Fyssas and then that the infamous neo-Nazi group would be indicted as a criminal organisation.
People hugged, chanted and clapped at the news, and there was a sense of relief as well as joy in the air. Up until the last minute, many in Greece still believed that Golden Dawn could escape justice.
In emotional scenes, Pavlos Fyssas’s mother, Magda, who has waited for more than seven years to see justice served for her son, punched the air outside the court and said “you did it, my son,” while members of his family cried and hugged each other nearby.
Protesters young and old embraced and chanted the names of Golden Dawn’s victims – Pavlos Fyssas and Shehzad Luqman, who was 27 when he was stabbed to death by Golden Dawn affiliates in 2013.
The joy was cut short, however, by the use of tear gas and a water cannon against the largely peaceful group.
A small number of people had reportedly started throwing objects at the police, but after dancing and clapping, many who had gathered outside the court were left struggling to breathe amid copious waves of tear gas.
Gas canisters were, however, not enough to dampen the protesters’ spirits as they left the court and headed towards Syntagma Square, chanting anti-fascist songs.
“Pavlos Lives,” were the words on everyone’s lips, from old men to young children on their father’s shoulders.
However, some warned that the far right would live on, despite the verdict.
“There are still fascists and Nazi groups everywhere,” said two men in their early twenties, who did not want to be identified. “This is only the start.”
Reading the verdict, presiding judge Maria Lepenioti said Golden Dawn founder and leader Nikos Michaloliakos and other senior members were guilty of running a criminal organisation.
None of the party’s senior members was present in the court.
“It is really a very important day for Greek democracy,” said Daphne Halikiopoulou, a professor of comparative politics from Reading University. “It is a decision that proves that there is a democratic system, that the institutions are independent and that our judicial systems work and that this criminal organisation can actually be indicted for crime.”
Halikiopoulou said that it was still important to frame this as a “first step,” against the far right in Greece and beyond.
“I think that while the Golden Dawn verdict is a good thing, we now need to take a step back as a country and to understand why we voted this criminal organisation into our parliament. There are underlying reasons why these kinds of ideas became supported and why they were widespread. Unless we deal with that as well, then obviously there will be other Golden Dawns at the next crisis.”
Manos Moschopoulos from the Open Society Foundations said it was important to monitor far-right narratives in politics.
“The Golden Dawn grew at a time when people had lost faith in Greece’s democratic system and its ability to protect them during the severe austerity crisis. Their slogans were designed to put the blame on the most vulnerable. It wasn’t migrants who threatened the livelihoods of Greeks in 2012 when the Golden Dawn entered parliament. As was the case then, today racist politics pose a larger threat to the wellbeing of our community than any of the far right’s scapegoats.”
Eva Cosse, the Western Europe researcher from Human Rights Watch, said it was a significant day for all those who had suffered because of Golden Dawn’s actions.
“This historic verdict sends a clear message that hate-mongers will not be tolerated and have no place in a democratic society. It’s an important day for victims, their families and Greece as a whole.”
In this Aug. 21, 2020 file photo, a firefighter rubs his head while watching the LNU Lightning Complex fires spread through the Berryessa Estates neighborhood of unincorporated Napa County, California. (photo: Noah Berger/AP)
Earth Has Experienced Its Warmest September on Record
Deutsche Welle
Excerpt: "Global temperatures were up by 1.3 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels in the 12 months leading up to this September."
Global temperatures were up by 1.3 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels in the 12 months leading up to this September. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice saw its second-lowest average extent for decades, says a new report.
he Earth has experienced its warmest September since record-keeping began, according to a European Union agency's report published Wednesday.
The Copernicus Climate Change Service, which tracks global temperatures, published statistics that show 2020 is, so far, tying with 2016 for the warmest calendar year. Global temperatures in January, May and September exceeded those in 2016 and tied in April and June.
"There is currently little difference between 2020 and 2016 for the year-to-date," Copernicus researcher Freja Vambourg said.
Read more: How successful are international climate efforts?
The report showed that temperatures in Europe were particularly warm, with the cooling La Nina weather event in the eastern Pacific cooling parts of the southern hemisphere.
Arctic sea ice saw its second-lowest September average extent on record, more than 40% below the 1981-2020 average. Temperatures in Siberia were "especially high."
Paris Agreement temperature rise maximum is close
Monitors of the Paris Climate Agreement will view the figures with particular alarm: for the 12-month period through to September 2020, the planet was nearly 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial levels.
This is close to the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold for severe impacts to the planet detailed in a 2018 UN climate report.
The Paris Agreement, of which many UN nations are signatories, has nations aim to cap global warming "well below" 2 degrees Celsius and at 1.5 degrees if possible.
Overall, September 2020 was 0.05 degrees Celsius warmer than September 2019.
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