22 April 23
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The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."
“Starship was performing perfectly well when it was on the launchpad,” Musk said. “The trouble began when it left.”
“I urged Starship against working remotely, but it insisted,” he added. “Well, who was right?”
The SpaceX C.E.O. said that Starship’s misadventure should be a lesson to all those employees who insist on working from home.
“If you work remotely, you, too, will explode,” he warned.
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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. (photo: Karsten Moran/NYT)
Under the agreement, committee members will be able to question Mark Pomerantz under oath next month in Washington. The deal resolves a lawsuit in which Bragg had sought to block Pomerantz from testifying, ending a legal dispute that escalated to a federal appeals court just weeks after Trump’s historic indictment.
Pomerantz will be accompanied by a lawyer from Bragg’s office, an accommodation the committee said it would have allowed even without Friday’s agreement.
Bragg’s office and the Judiciary Committee reached the agreement after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay Thursday that temporarily halted enforcement of a House subpoena which had called for Pomerantz to testify.
The appeals court had been scheduled to hear oral arguments in the dispute on Tuesday.
Bragg’s office said the agreement, delaying Pomerantz’s testimony until May 12, preserves the district attorney’s “privileges and interests” in his ongoing Trump prosecution.
“Our successful stay of this subpoena blocked the immediate deposition and afforded us the time necessary to coordinate with the House Judiciary Committee on an agreement that protects the District Attorney’s privileges and interests,” Bragg’s office said in a statement.
“We are pleased with this resolution, which ensures any questioning of our former employee will take place in the presence of our General Counsel on a reasonable, agreed upon timeframe. We are gratified that the Second Circuit’s ruling provided us with the opportunity to successfully resolve this dispute,” Bragg’s office said.
Bragg had appealed to the 2nd Circuit after a lower court judge ruled Wednesday that there was no legal basis to block the Judiciary Committee’s subpoena and that Pomerantz’s deposition must go forward as scheduled.
Under the agreement, Bragg withdrew his appeal.
Russell Dye, a spokesperson for committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, said in a statement, “Mr. Pomerantz’s deposition will go forward on May 12, and we look forward to his appearance.”
Pomerantz once oversaw the yearslong Trump investigation but left the job after clashing with Bragg over the direction of the case. He recently wrote a book about his work pursuing Trump and discussed the investigation in interviews on “60 Minutes” and other shows.
Bragg, a Democrat, sued Jordan and the Judiciary Committee last week seeking to block the subpoena. His lawyer, Theodore Boutrous, argued that seeking Pomerantz’s testimony was part of a “transparent campaign to intimidate and attack” Bragg and that Congress was “invading a state” to investigate a local prosecutor when it had no authority to do so.
Boutrous said House Republicans’ interest in Bragg amounted to Congress “jumping in and haranguing the D.A. while the prosecution is ongoing.”
The Judiciary Committee started scrutinizing Bragg’s investigation of the former president in the weeks that preceded his indictment. Jordan sent letters seeking interviews with Bragg and documents before subpoenaing Pomerantz. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, said in her ruling Wednesday that she would handle any legal fights that may arise from other subpoenas in the committee’s investigation of Bragg.
A committee lawyer, Matthew Berry, said at that hearing that Congress has legitimate legislative reasons for wanting to question Pomerantz and examine Bragg’s prosecution of Trump, citing the office’s use of $5,000 in federal funds to pay for Trump-related investigations.
Congress is also considering legislation, offered by Republicans in the wake of Trump’s indictment, to change how criminal cases against former presidents unfold, Berry said. One bill would prohibit prosecutors from using federal funds to investigate presidents, and another would require any criminal cases involving a former president be resolved in federal court instead of at the state level.
House Republicans, Berry said, want to protect the sovereignty and autonomy of the presidency, envisioning a scenario where the commander in chief could feel obligated to make certain decisions to avoid having local prosecutors in politically unfavorable jurisdictions charge them with crimes after they leave office.
For those reasons, Berry argued, Congress is immune from judicial intervention, citing the speech and debate clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Pomerantz could refuse to answer certain questions, citing legal privilege and ethical obligations, and Jordan would rule on those assertions on a case-by-case basis, Berry said, but he shouldn’t be exempt from showing up. If Jordan were to overrule Pomerantz and he still refused to answer, he could then face a criminal referral to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress, but that wouldn’t happen immediately, Berry said.
Trump was indicted last month on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush-money payments made during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. He has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
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The first leak to Discord appeared to come less than 48 hours into Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. (photo: Creative Commons)
A Discord user matching the profile of Jack Teixeira distributed intelligence to a larger chat group, days after the beginning of the Ukraine war.
In February 2022, soon after the invasion of Ukraine, a user profile matching that of Airman Jack Teixeira began posting secret intelligence on the Russian war effort on a previously undisclosed chat group on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers. The chat group contained about 600 members.
The case against Airman Teixeira, 21, who was arrested on April 13, pertains to the leaking of classified documents on another Discord group of about 50 members, called Thug Shaker Central. There, he began posting sensitive information in October 2022, members of the group told The Times. His job as an information technology specialist at an Air Force base in Massachusetts gave him top secret clearance.
It is not clear whether authorities are aware of the classified material posted on this additional Discord chat group.
The newly discovered information posted on the larger chat group included details about Russian and Ukrainian casualties, activities of Moscow’s spy agencies and updates on aid being provided to Ukraine. The user claimed to be posting information from the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies.
The additional information raises questions about why authorities did not discover the leaks sooner, particularly since hundreds more people would have been able to see the posts.
The exposure of some of America’s most closely guarded secrets has prompted criticism about how the Pentagon and intelligence agencies protect classified data, and whether there are weaknesses in both vetting people for security clearances and enforcing the mantra that access to secrets should only be given to people with a “need to know.”
The Times learned about the larger chat room from a Discord user. Unlike Thug Shaker Central, the second chat room was publicly listed on a YouTube channel and was easily accessed in seconds.
A chain of digital evidence collected by The Times ties the posts containing the sensitive information to Airman Teixeira. The posts were made under a user name that The Times has previously connected to Airman Teixeira. The person leaking the information said he worked at a U.S. Air Force intelligence unit. Details in videos and photographs he posted matched images posted by family members inside the Teixeira home in North Dighton, Mass. Fellow Discord members sent the user birthday wishes on Dec. 21, the same date Airman Teixeira’s sister wished him a happy birthday on Facebook. And he posted a photograph of an antique German rifle for which The Times found an online receipt in Airman Teixeira’s name.
The posts reviewed by The Times appear to be detailed written accounts of the classified documents themselves, and identify which intelligence agency they are from. While it appears that the user likely posted pictures of some documents, those have since been deleted from the chat group.
Joshua Hanye, one of Airman Teixeira’s attorneys from the Boston public defenders office, declined to comment about the latest revelations. Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department also declined to comment.
It appears the first leak came less than 48 hours into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Saw a pentagon report saying that ⅓rd of the force is being used to invade,” the user wrote. Apparently eager to impress others in the group who questioned his analysis, he said: “I have a little more than open source info. Perks of being in a USAF intel unit,” referring to the United States Air Force.
Some of the intelligence posted appeared to foretell battlefield developments. On March 27, 2022, he shared classified information about the Russian pullback from Kyiv, information he said he “found on an NSA site.”
“Some ‘big’ news,” he wrote. “There may be a planned withdrawal of the troops west of Kiev, as in all of them.” Two days later, Russian officials announced they were pulling back from the Ukrainian capital.
Some posts began with an update on casualty numbers. He also reported on Ukraine’s targeting priorities and the activities of Russian intelligence agencies. He took particular interest in posting updates of which countries were providing lethal aid to Ukraine.
At times, he appeared to be posting from the military base where he was stationed. In one conversation, he said he was about to enter an area where people with security clearance can access classified computer networks, known as a SCIF — Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.
How Airman Teixeira obtained the documents that he is accused of posting online has been a key question for investigators. They believe he used administrator privileges connected to his information technology job to access documents. In his posts, Airman Teixeira said his job gave him access to material that others could not see. “The job I have lets me get privilege’s above most intel guys,” he wrote.
Airman Teixeira also claimed that he was actively combing classified computer networks for material on the Ukraine war. When one of the Discord users urged him not to abuse his access to classified intelligence, Teixeira replied: “too late.”
At one point he offered to share information privately with members of the group living outside the United States. “DM me and I can tell you what I have,” he wrote.
On another occasion, he wrote that he was able to access a site run by the National Security Agency, the U.S. spy agency that focuses on communications intercepted from computer networks, to look for updates on the war.
He also claimed to have access to intelligence from U.S. partners. “I usually work with GCHQ people when I’m looking at foreign countries,” he told the chat group in September 2022, referring to Government Communications Headquarters, the British agency for intelligence, security and cyberaffairs.
A spokesman for the National Security Agency declined to comment, referring questions to the Justice Department. A spokeswoman for the British Embassy declined to comment as well.
Airman Teixeira continued to share more detailed information to the larger chat group until a month ago.
“I was very happy and willing and enthusiastic to have covered this event for the past year and share with all of you something that not many people get to see,” he wrote on March 19, before adding, “I’ve decided to stop with the updates.”
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A police officer. (photo: Adobe Stock)
Two new state bills that Gov. Tate Reeves signed into on Friday are discriminatory because they focus only on Jackson, a majority-Black city, the NAACP said.
The lawsuit, which was e-filed Friday evening in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, accuses Reeves and other state officials of unfairly singling out Jackson, a predominantly Black city struggling with violent crime and an overburdened court system.
The bills Reeves signed Friday create a temporary court system outside city control to be run by appointed judges and prosecutors who will handle cases brought to them by the Capitol Police, a once-obscure agency that has been given power to patrol the capital.
Those moves strip Jackson residents of their voting power and muffle their voice in how justice is administered in the city by sidestepping Mississippi’s existing system in which voters elected their judges and their mayors, who appointed their police chiefs, NAACP officials said.
They cited as an example Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s 2020 order changing the Jackson Police Department’s use-of-force policy, which bans chokeholds, mandates de-escalation techniques and requires officers to intervene if they see another officer using unnecessary force. The Capitol Police, which hasn’t publicly updated its use-of-force policy since 2006, is part of the state Department of Public Safety and isn’t subject to city policies.
The two new state laws are racially discriminatory because they focus only on Jackson, the NAACP’s lawyers argued. The legislation creates a new court system in a part of the city known as the Capitol Complex Improvement District. The new judges will be appointed by the white chief justice of the Supreme Court and the new prosecutors by the white state attorney general. The Capitol Police is run by a white chief who answers to a white public safety commissioner who answers to a white governor.
The new laws “radically and unconstitutionally circumscribe the ability of Jackson’s singled-out, majority-Black residents to live as full citizens with full rights in their own city,” the lawsuit said.
Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP and a longtime Jackson resident, said in an interview that the lawsuit was part of a broader effort to push back against years of the state stifling Jackson’s independence. Last year, the civil rights organization accused the state of depriving Jackson of the money it needed to upgrade its crumbling water system. A state environmental official has denied that happened.
Instead of creating a new court system and bringing in a state police agency, Mississippi should add more elected judges to represent Jackson and give Jackson money to hire more city police officers, Johnson said. One of the new laws raises the possibility of Jackson getting one additional elected judge if caseload data shows a need.
“Our goal is to ensure that the citizens of Jackson are not treated like second-class citizens, that the city is not singled out as a pariah and that the citizens can be assured that they have safe, clean drinking water, can elect the candidates of their choice, and have a law enforcement agency that is supportive not demanding to take over,” Johnson, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in an interview. “That’s how democracy works.”
The lawsuit alleges that the new laws violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. It also targets a provision that gives the Capitol Police broad power over the approval of events held on or next to state government property. The NAACP lawyers said that provision could stifle people’s right to hold protests or other First Amendment-protected activities, including expressing their disapproval of the new court and police agency.
The lawsuit also names as defendants Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, Mississippi Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Randolph, Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell and Mississippi Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey. The NAACP said it filed the lawsuit on behalf of its Mississippi and Jackson chapters, Jackson residents and local civil rights activists. The organizations said they want the state blocked from making the changes outlined in the laws.
Reeves said in a statement that the legislation seeks to help a city suffering from “an unprecedented epidemic of crime,” including a murder rate that has put Jackson among “one of the most dangerous places in the world.” Reeves said the accusations of racism, driven by “liberal activists” and “the national media,” were false.
Reeves pushed back against portrayals of the state taking power away from the people of Jackson. The Capitol Police will help city police fight crime, he said. The new court’s decisions may be reviewed by elected judges, he said. The legislation improves transparency by requiring the Department of Public Safety to hold four town hall meetings a year, and Capitol Police officers to wear body cameras, Reeves said.
“There is a clear consensus that more law enforcement boots on the ground are needed in Jackson, especially given that the city’s police department has chronically been understaffed by at least a hundred officers,” Reeves said.
The other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Tindell has previously defended the Capitol Police’s work and pledged to increase the agency’s transparency.
Yevgeny Prigozhin. (photo: Artem Krasnov/Sipa USA/AP)
Violent criminals who served with the notorious Russian militia in Ukraine are terrorising the communities they return to
Locals knew the man, Soslan Valiyev, 38, as an idiosyncratic but popular fixture in Tskhinvali, the tiny capital of the Russian-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia in Georgia.
Tsugri, as Valiyev was affectionately nicknamed by everyone in town, had a developmental disability. “As long as I could remember Tskhinvali, Tsugri was always there, greeting cars as they entered the city with his big smile,” said Alik Puhati, a journalist and South Ossetian native.
“He was loved by everyone in our tight community. A welcomed guest at weddings and dinners, people really took care of and protected him,” Puhati added.
The shock was therefore palpable in Tskhinvali when the news broke out that Tsugri had been killed that evening. A harrowing video published on Telegram channels showed a man chasing and kicking Tsugri moments before he reportedly stabbed him to death.
“Everyone is in shock,” Puhati said, “people ask themselves, ‘How could this have happened?’”
Local authorities announced in the early hours of Tuesday that they had arrested a man who was suspected of murdering Tsugri. The man, who was identified by state-run media, was Georgiy Siukayev, a convicted murderer who was recruited from jail last autumn by the Wagner paramilitary organisation to fight in Ukraine.
Over the course of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wagner has recruited tens of thousands of inmates, including murderers and domestic abusers, to fight some of the war’s bloodiest battles.
Many are believed to have died in Ukraine, but those who survived the six months in the group’s ranks have earned presidential pardons and are now returning to their home towns. According to the notorious Wagner head Evgeniy Prigozhin, more than 5,000 former criminals have already been freed. One of those is Siukayev who recently returned to his home town of Tskhinvali.
Their releases have stoked fears that the men will go on to commit further crimes, worries that will only grow following a string of violent crimes perpetrated by former Wagner soldiers, including the murder of Tsugri.
Commenting on the case in a statement, Prigozhin claimed that Siukayev was defending bystanders who were being harassed.
But Anatoly Bibilov, the former South Ossetian president, dismissed Prigozhin’s statement, calling Tsugri a “kind and harmless guy whom everyone, with rare exceptions, loved as their own”.
Tsugri’s murder wasn’t the first allegedly committed by a pardoned prisoner turned Wagner fighter.
At the end of March, Yulia Buiskich, an 85-year-old pensioner, was killed at home in the sleepy town of Novyj Burets in the Kirov region, 600 miles east of Moscow.
The perpetrator, 28-year-old Ivan Rossomakhin, was already a repeat offender when he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for murder in 2020. He too was recruited by Prigozhin and recently returned to his home town after fighting in Ukraine.
News of Rossomakhin’s return deeply unsettled Novyj Burets’ modest community of a few hundred people and led to a town hall meeting, which was filmed by a local TV channel.
During the meeting, police chief Vadim Varankin promised that the “problematic troublemaker” Rossomakhin would be taken away from the town on 28 March.
But a day later, on 29 March, Rossomakhin entered the wooden house of Buiskich, where he is believed to have killed her with an axe.
“The state and personally Putin and Prigozhin are to blame for Yulia’s death and should answer for it,” said a close relative of Buiskich, speaking under condition of anonymity.
“They released a sick bastard into society.”
The relative described Buiskich as a “very active and cheerful person, full of life”.
“At 85, she was so fond of travelling, she often travelled hundreds of miles to visit her friends and family,” the relative said.
“She had so much joy in her life, enough for another 10 years.”
In one picture shared with the Observer, a smiling Buiskich wearing a flowery dress is holding a large bowl of strawberries. Another image showed Buiskich proudly standing next to her granddaughter.
The relative, as well as other family members contacted by the Observer, said they feared state reprisals for speaking out against Wagner.
Earlier this year, Vladimir Putin signed legislation making it a criminal offence to publicly criticise Wagner fighters or publish negative reports about them. Soon after, a Russian activist who revealed details of the burials of Wagner mercenaries killed in Ukraine fled the country.
And Prigozhin, a longtime ally of Putin, has vouched to help former convicts who have served out their contracts in Ukraine if they get in trouble with law enforcement.
“The police should treat you with respect. If they are being unreasonable … I myself will call and sort things out with the governors and so on. We will find a solution,” Pirgozhin recently told a group of former prisoners.
The backing of Prigozhin, one of Russia’s most notorious figures, will add to a growing sense of impunity felt by prisoners returning home, said a representative of Jailed Russia, a prisoners’ rights NGO.
One of those former criminals is Alexey Savichev, who returned in March to his home town of Voronezh, a city in south-west Russia.
Savichev, 49, a convicted murderer recruited by Wagner last September, fought for six months in Ukraine, first in the battle for the town of Soledar and, after its capture, in Bakhmut.
Earlier this week, in an interview with this paper, he admitted to killing and torturing “dozens” of Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Back in Voronezh, Savichev said he quickly spent the full sum he earned while with Wagner – roughly one million rubles (£10,000) – on “alcohol and prostitutes”.
“I was drinking basically non-stop, I finally had freedom and a lot of money,” he said.
Savichev described to the Observer how police in Voronezh would occasionally detain him for disorderly conduct late at night.
But, according to his account, he was released every time after showing the police some of the medals he received for fighting in Ukraine, including a presidential award for “bravery” seen by the Observer.
“The cops treated me somewhat like a hero,” Savichev boasted, adding that police officers would invite him for tea to hear tales about his time with Wagner.
“It felt like I could get away with anything.”
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People are desperate to find water with many areas cut off since Saturday. (photo: Reuters)
As two generals slug it out in Sudan with little thought to the devastation they are causing, there is a whole grassroots network of people tirelessly helping those caught in the crossfire.
Khartoum and its surrounds has a population of around 10 million people and for nearly a week they have had no water or electricity, most hunkering down inside - away from windows in case of incoming fire. Most of the city's hospitals are closed and more than 300 civilians have been killed.
To get any supplies people must venture outside to find a shop that has some stock - and there are accounts of a dreadful stench now coming from the dead bodies that litter the streets.
WhatsApp groups, Facebook and Twitter are alive with offers of help for those who find themselves without food or medication or giving information about safe routes to leave the city. Most of them - and those messages with pleas for help - are accompanied by the hashtag #NoToWar.
"Currently, we have 750 food baskets available. One basket is enough for a family of six people," another Khartoum tweeter posts.
Others have been collating invaluable information, like a lengthy list sent out by @Jia_Elhassan about where water can currently be found in different areas of the city.
This message accompanies an address and phone number listed as one of five places in Omdurman: "Anyone who needs water, our house is open for them 24 hours."
Someone else puts out a tweet with a photo of insulin pens available, along with his phone number.
'Terrified orphans at risk'
Much of this altruism is led by young volunteers operating at a local neighbourhood level by what are called "resistance committees". There are thousands of them across the country.
They have been the backbone of a pro-democracy movement that rose up following the ousting of long-time leader Omar al-Bashir in 2019, calling for a return to full civilian rule.
Their task has mainly been to organise peaceful protests against the military junta. Last Sunday, the co-ordinating body of Khartoum's resistance committees sent out a message to "revolutionaries in the neighbourhoods" asking them to prepare to help fellow residents.
In particular they were asked to form "medical rooms to deal with possible injuries", to monitor food supplies and "raise the slogan #NoToWar".
"The only ones to lose from war are the people, so let us unite to overcome that," the message said.
Small charities like Hadhreen, which translates from Arabic as "We are present and ready to help", have also been instrumental in trying to co-ordinate help for those in need.
When Nazim Sirag, who heads Hadhreen, heard about more than 300 terrified children at an orphanage in Khartoum in need of food, water and medicine. He tweeted: "We can't provide milk for new-born babies, everyone is afraid."
In response to our query via WhatsApp if any help had been found through his network, he says: "We are trying to reach them. Till now we failed. Everyone in Sudan is scared to go out," adding that the orphanage was in one of the "hot areas".
"Tomorrow we have [to] try early in the morning. Wish us luck."
Mr Sirag has been instrumental since the 2021 coup in liaising with Sudanese doctors unions in the diaspora as he sought to get medical help abroad for some of those injured in pro-democracy protests.
These diaspora medics have long been key to propping up Sudan's precarious health system over years of economic decline.
Mohamed Hamadto, a trauma surgeon and treasurer of the Sudan Doctors Union in the UK, told the BBC his group has tended to focus on training initiatives, but since the outbreak of violence last Saturday they had been raising funds to send to the main Sudanese Doctors Union in Khartoum and collecting supplies they hope to fly in when the situation allows.
So far they have received about £9,000 ($11,000) from donations - and this money will help the central doctors union buy supplies privately for clinics being repurposed on the outskirts of Khartoum as most of the city's 59 hospitals are now closed because of the fighting.
"These hospitals on the periphery need to be ready for increasing numbers of civilian victims," Dr Hamadto says, with some reports suggesting up to 600 people have now died.
As do small neighbourhood health centres.
"I was just speaking to one of my colleagues and she's trying to get her resistance committee to set up a local health centre so they can provide basic first aid to people who are injured because the area she lives in is bombarded heavily," he says.
This is in al-Siteen Street, not far from the airport and army headquarters where the battles are raging.
The Sudanese Doctors Union will then be able to provide bandages, fluids, antibiotics and other basics to her health centre for trauma injuries.
'My cousin broke my heart'
Relatives abroad are also focusing their help on the doctors.
"Everything is closed. There's zero point in sending money [to our family]," Ahmed Abdel-Elrazig, a third-year maths and economic undergraduate at the University of Toronto, told the BBC on Thursday.
"Right now it's the holy month of Ramadan. I was on a call to one of my cousins and they broke my heart - they told me that even after they broke their fast they still were hungry because they were rationing food."
He is part of the Canadian university's Sudanese Students Union, set up last year with about 100 members. A few days ago the union put up a Sudan crisis crowdfunding page.
"We're trying to do our best to hit our goal right now to raise $10,000… so all injured civilians do have the medical attention that they do require. We're currently partnered with the Sudanese Doctors Union," he says.
"This is the bare minimum that we can do - I still feel extremely helpless."
Fellow student union member Fawzia Elhad, majoring in political science and psychology, agrees as she worries about her parents and siblings in Khartoum.
"There is a lot of uncertainty - and they don't know now whether to leave the capital."
Those in cities outside Khartoum are reaching out with offers of accommodation for people who do manage to leave - a journey fraught with danger.
"I am your brother from Rufa'ah and I can provide housing with 100 beds, electricity and water for people," someone 140km (85 miles) south-east of Khartoum in El Gazira state tweets.
An organiser in that state's capital, Wad Medani, sent out a list with the names and numbers of six people willing to provide "housing, food and everything" for those fleeing.
This warmth of spirit - such a stark contrast to the men in uniform - is best summed up by a youth group in Atbara, a city about 300km north-east of Khartoum, which posts a link to join a WhatsApp group to help receive those escaping from the capital, beginning with the words: "You are welcome."
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Until recently, much of the open ocean had no legal protection against pollution and destruction. (photo: Live Science)
The most important environmental policies advanced since the last Earth Day.
These problems stem from the things we build, buy, and eat. But that also means if we change our actions, we can solve them.
Certainly, individual decisions about housing, appliances, transportation, and diet play a key role in reducing our harmful impacts on the planet. However, the biggest way you or I can have an impact is to pressure decision-makers at every level — city councils, statehouses, national governments, corporate boards — to cut greenhouse gas emissions, to protect wildlife beneath the sea, and to invest in cleaner energy. That means the most powerful tool to fix our environmental problems is ink on paper (or rather, pixels on screens).
Over the past year, this advocacy strategy blossomed. We now have the largest international land and ocean conservation target ever, a treaty to protect the high seas, and a commitment to phase out the most potent greenhouse gases completely.
In the US, the world’s largest historical emitter and second-largest current emitter of carbon dioxide, the government is putting more money than ever into solving climate change. It’s proposing tough new goalposts to draw down emissions from vehicles ranging from tiny hatchbacks to heavy-duty trucks, in an effort to step on the accelerator for EVs.
These were hard-fought wins, built on years of organizing, negotiations, and research. But these initiatives are just starting points, and they’re not enough to halt rising temperatures and the rapid pace of extinction.
Over the past year, we learned that the world is very likely to heat up past the 2.7 degree Fahrenheit (1.5 degree Celsius) goalpost of the Paris climate agreement, and scientists renewed their warnings that the window to act is slamming shut. Despite this, countries like the US are simultaneously working against their own climate commitments by authorizing more fossil fuel development that will further contribute to warming.
So turning ink on paper into an actual reduction in carbon dioxide pollution demands even more political pressure, ensuring that powerful institutions meet their benchmarks and holding them accountable if they don’t.
Here are the seven biggest policy wins for the planet since the last Earth Day:
1) Rich countries are finally starting to show the money
The countries that contributed the most to climate change — again, the US is number one among them — also have the wealth to cope with many of its effects. The poorer countries that contributed the least, like Pakistan, Somalia, and the Marshall Islands, are already seeing some of the worst climate change impacts now: worsened drought, torrential rainfall, and sea level rise.
These countries argue that they deserve compensation for the damage from problems they didn’t cause and want financial help to deal with the shifts that lie ahead. But wealthy nations have been resistant to committing any money and were loath to sign on to any program that hinted at climate liability.
Over the past year, that edifice started to crumble. At the COP27 climate negotiations in Egypt last year, countries finally struck a deal to compensate poorer countries for ongoing climate destruction. The proposal is short on details, but the fact that a deal was reached at all is a huge step forward. It helps some of the most afflicted regions deal with climate change now, and by attaching a price tag to climate damages, the whole world has a stronger incentive to do more to keep warming in check.
Wealthy countries also struck direct climate deals with individual countries in the past year. The biggest was a $20 billion financing package from the US, Japan, and European countries to help Indonesia get off of coal. They also struck a similar $15.5 billion deal with Vietnam. Deals are in the works for India and Senegal, and more may be in the pipeline.
And just this week, the White House announced that the US would contribute $1 billion to the UN Green Climate Fund, which finances adaptation and mitigation efforts in developing countries.
2) An actual bipartisan climate treaty passed the Senate
With the narrow, bitter political divide in Congress, it’s been difficult to get anything done at all. But last year, 21 Republicans in the Senate voted with Democrats to pass the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.
The treaty phases out a class of chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). They’re used in refrigerators and air conditioners, but when they leak, they’re thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide at heating up the planet. Conversely, reducing a small amount of HFC pollution yields huge dividends. The Kigali Amendment alone is poised to avert upward of 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) of warming by the end of the century.
3) A new accord will preserve nearly one-third of the Earth
Countries also gathered last year to put together a treaty to protect biodiversity. At the COP15 meeting in Montreal, just about every country in the world agreed to work together to protect species from extinction and halt the decline of the lands, skies, and waters where they live.
The agreement, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, sets 23 targets that countries must achieve by 2030. Among them, countries have to stop subsidizing activities that continue to destroy wilderness, like mining and industrial fishing. The agreement also protects at least 30 percent of all land and water on Earth by 2030 — the largest land and ocean conservation commitment in history. There’s money behind it, too: Wealthy countries promised $30 billion for these efforts, roughly triple the amount spent currently.
4) The planet’s largest habitat has a new legal shield
Until recently, the open ocean was a bit of a black hole, legally speaking. Two hundred nautical miles off a country’s shoreline, no country has jurisdiction. This area adds up to half the surface area of the planet. It’s home to the largest animals and the tiniest creatures like phytoplankton, which provide about half of the oxygen we breathe.
Now, after 20 years of planning and negotiations, there’s a legal framework, backed by close to every country in the world, to protect this region. The treaty establishes protected areas in the ocean, akin to national parks, where fishing, mining, and dumping is prohibited. These regions will expand over time and will count toward the aforementioned targets in the Global Biodiversity Framework. The UN still has to adopt the agreement, though, and countries still have to ratify. And the tricky question of how to enforce it on the open seas remains.
5) Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerated Europe’s shift off of fossil fuels
Russia is the largest natural gas exporter in the world, and after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, many of its largest customers in Europe were desperate to find an alternative. Coal ended up filling some of the gap, but the energy crisis following the invasion also forced the continent to reckon with its entire relationship with fossil fuels.
Spikes in oil and gas prices alongside overall cost declines in wind and solar convinced policymakers to harness more clean energy. “After the invasion, energy security emerged as additional strong motivation to accelerate renewable energy deployment,” said the International Energy Agency. Individuals are also using drawing on renewables to insulate themselves from volatility in energy markets. In 2022, European households installed three times as many gigawatts of solar as they did in 2021. That’s on track to triple again in the next four years.
6) The US finally has a law to deal with climate change
Last summer, President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats passed an enormous spending influx to move the US economy away from fossil fuels. The law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, includes $369 billion for an array of climate priorities. Consumers will see tax breaks and rebates aimed at electrifying their homes and cars, utilities will receive investments to make the transition off of coal, oil and gas polluters will be held to new fees for their methane pollution, and communities that have been harmed by redlining policies and environmental racism will receive grants to clean up local pollution.
The law will ultimately be an important marker in propelling the US into a future with more electric transportation, electric homes, and creating a homegrown clean energy. But the IRA is early yet in its implementation at the federal, state, and local level.
If that rollout goes well, the US could finally meet the Biden administration’s aim of slashing greenhouse gas pollution in half compared to 2005 levels by the end of the decade. The US is already one-third of the way there, and the IRA provides the extra boost, while helping to clean up the everyday air and water pollution Americans must contend with. But, worryingly, US emissions are now trending upward.
7) Fossil fuel-powered cars will soon be parked
Transportation is the largest source of climate pollution in the US, and one of the largest in the world. Switching cars and trucks from gasoline and diesel to fuel cells and batteries is thus an essential step for meeting climate change goals. Electric vehicles also avoid dangerous pollutants like particulates and nitrogen oxides. But EVs only made up 5.8 percent of cars sold in the US last year and just over 10 percent around the world.
To speed up this trend, California last year approved a finish line for fossil fuel-powered vehicles by 2035. Other states like New York and Massachusetts have since joined the race. More recently, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new set of pollution regulations for cars, pickups, SUVs, and delivery trucks. The rules mean that by 2032, two-thirds of cars sold in the US will have to run on electrons.
The European Union also proposed a ban on gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035. With looming cutoffs in the largest car markets in the world, the global auto industry is getting a loud signal that the internal combustion engine’s days are numbered.
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PERSONAL ADDITION:
STOP WHINING!
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO REDUCE YOUR CONSUMPTION?
Setting aside the CLIMATE CRISIS, reducing your consumption puts $$$ in your pocket - what's wrong with that?
We've been picking away at reducing out consumption for decades.
Experts tell us that we can easily & inexpensively reduce our consumption by 20%.
Lighting accounts for 15% of your energy bill.
Insulation, caulk & weatherstripping are inexpensive.
Do you have LEDS? They're available in a wide range of options and inexpensive.
We replaced 2 always on CFL bulbs with LEDs and reduced our electric bill $5 the following month.
ALL of our ALWAYS ON appliances: tv & peripherals, computer & peripherals are on the electric strips - when they're OFF, they're OFF.
Each appliance was replaced with the MOST EFFICIENT when it DIED.
When the washing machine died, it was replaced with a front loader, users less water, clothes are dryer. Paid for itself in 4 months...although we bought a chest freezer at the same time. Got rid of the energy guzzling side by side that was so big the moldy science experiments got lost. Put a meter on it and the consumption was horrifying!
ELECTRIC DOMESTIC HOT WATER HEATERS are on TIMERS. Why heat water all day?
We replaced windows with PARADIGM Triple Glaze Low E and couldn't be more pleased. Even if you can't afford that, you can buy rolls of reinforced aluminum foil and line your window coverings.
Accept personal responsibility, save yourself $$$ and educate yourself.
WE CAN DO THIS TOGETHER!
https://www.vox.com/23013748/un-climate-report-carbon-footprint-individual-action
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