World briefs
By NewsPress Now
Indigenous people
march in Brazil’s capital
BRASILIA, Brazil | Bearing images of animals and covered in body paint, hundreds of Indigenous people marched Wednesday in Brazil’s capital, urging Congress to drop a proposed constitutional amendment that has the potential to paralyze and even reverse land allocations.
The bill aims to add to the Constitution a legal theory, championed by the agribusiness caucus, that the date the Constitution was promulgated — Oct. 5, 1988 — should be the deadline for Indigenous peoples to have already either physically occupied claimed land or be legally fighting to reoccupy territory. Lawmakers from the caucus also claim it provides legal certainty for landholders.
Indigenous rights groups have argued that establishing a deadline is unfair, as it does not account for expulsions and forced displacements of Indigenous populations, particularly during Brazil’s agriculture frontier expansion in the 20th century.
“We are aware of the interests of mining companies, ranchers and oil companies in our lands. How many lives will be destroyed if this bill passes?” Alessandra Korap, an Indigenous leader of the Munduruku tribe, told The Associated Press.
On Sept. 21, 2023, the Supreme Court rejected the deadline concept, which formed part of a lawsuit brought by Santa Catarina state. In the vote that secured the majority, Justice Luiz Fux argued that areas connected to Indigenous ancestry and traditions are protected by the Constitution, even if not officially recognized. It was a moment of widespread celebration among Indigenous communities and their advocates.
One week after the ruling, pro-agribusiness lawmakers began pushing for congressional approval of the deadline. One initiative is the proposed constitutional amendment that the Indigenous movement fears will come up for a vote in the coming days.
Congress also passed a law in December that established the 1988 deadline. The Indigenous movement and political parties appealed to the Supreme Court, which hasn’t yet issued a ruling on the matter. During a speech in Congress, the author of the constitutional amendment, Sen. Hiran Gonçalves, stated that his proposal aims to settle the issue definitively, thereby ending legal uncertainty.
Dinamam Tuxá, head of the rights group Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, told the Associated Press that, if approved, the bill will lead to the suspension of Indigenous land demarcations, escalate socio-environmental conflicts and increase deforestation.
At least 95 people die in
devastating flash floods in Spain
UTIEL, Spain | Flash floods in Spain turned village streets into rivers, ruined homes, disrupted transportation and killed at least 95 people in the worst natural disaster to hit the European nation in recent memory.
Rainstorms that started Tuesday and continued Wednesday caused flooding across southern and eastern Spain, stretching from Malaga to Valencia. Muddy torrents tumbled vehicles down streets at high speeds while debris and household items swirled in the water. Police and rescue services used helicopters to lift people from their homes and rubber boats to reach drivers stranded atop cars.
Emergency services in the eastern region of Valencia confirmed a death toll of 92 people on Wednesday. Another two casualties were reported in the neighboring Castilla La Mancha region, while southern Andalusia reported one death.
“Yesterday was the worst day of my life,” Ricardo Gabaldón, the mayor of Utiel, a town in Valencia, told national broadcaster RTVE on Wednesday. He said six residents perished and more are missing.
“We were trapped like rats. Cars and trash containers were flowing down the streets. The water was rising to 3 meters (9.8 feet),” he said.
Spain’s government declared three days of mourning starting Thursday.
“For those who are looking for their loved ones, all of Spain feels your pain,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in a televised address.
Rescue personnel and more than 1,100 soldiers from Spain’s emergency response units were deployed to affected areas. Spain’s central government set up a crisis committee to coordinate rescue efforts.
Javier Berenguer, 63, escaped his bakery in Utiel when crushing water threatened to overwhelm him. He said it rose to 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) inside his business, and he fears his livelihood has been destroyed.
“I had to get out of a window as best I could because the water was already coming up to my shoulders. I took refuge on the first floor with the neighbors and I stayed there all night,” Berenguer told The Associated Press. “It has taken everything. I have to throw everything out of the bakery, the freezers, ovens, everything.”
María Carmen Martínez, another Utiel resident, witnessed a harrowing rescue.
“It was horrible, horrible. There was a man there clinging to a fence who was falling and calling people for help,” she said. “They couldn’t help him until the helicopters came and took him away.”
One Valencia town, Paiporta, suffered exceptional loss. Mayor Maribel Albalat told RTVE that over 30 people died in the town of some 25,000 people. Those included six residents of a senior residence. News media broadcast footage of seniors in chairs and wheelchairs at a Paiporta nursing home, some crying out in apparent terror as the water rose over their knees.
“We don’t know what happened, but in 10 minutes the village was overflowing with water,” Albalat said.
Spain’s national weather service said it rained more in eight hours in Valencia than it had in the preceding 20 months, calling the deluge “extraordinary.”
Located south of Barcelona on the Mediterranean coast, Valencia is a tourist destination known for its beaches, citrus orchards, and as the origin of the rice dish, paella. The region has gorges and small riverbeds that spend much of the year completely dry but quickly fill with water when it rains. Many of them pass through populated areas.
As the floods receded, thick layers of mud mixed with refuse made some streets unrecognizable.
“The neighborhood is destroyed, all the cars are on top of each other, it’s literally smashed up,” Christian Viena, a bar owner in the Valencian village of Barrio de la Torre, said by phone. “Everything is a total wreck, everything is ready to be thrown away. The mud is almost 30 centimeters (11 inches) deep.”
Outside Viena’s bar, people were venturing out to see what they could salvage. Cars were piled up and the streets were filled with clumps of water-logged branches.
Spain has experienced similar autumn storms in recent years. Nothing, however, compared to the devastation over the last two days, which recalls floods in Germany and Belgium in 2021 in which 230 people were killed.
The death toll will likely rise with other regions yet to report victims and search efforts continuing in hard-to-reach places.
“We are facing a very difficult situation,” minister of territory policies Ángel Víctor Torres said. “The fact that we can’t give a number of the missing persons indicates the magnitude of the tragedy.”
Spain is still recovering from a severe drought and has registered record high temperatures in recent years. Scientists say increased episodes of extreme weather are likely linked to climate change. The prolonged drought makes it more difficult for the land to absorb high volumes of water.
The storms also unleashed a rare tornado and a freak hailstorm that punched holes in car windows and greenhouses.
Transport was also affected. A high-speed train with nearly 300 people on board derailed near Malaga, although rail authorities said no one was hurt. High-speed train service between Valencia city and Madrid was interrupted, and the transport ministry said it could take up to four days to restore highspeed service to the capital due to the damage done to the line. Bus and commuter rail lines were likewise interrupted. Many flights were cancelled Tuesday night, stranding some 1,500 people overnight at Valencia’s airport. Flights resumed Wednesday.
Soccer games involving Valencia and Levante were canceled and players from Barcelona and Madrid held a moment of silence for victims of the flood before training Wednesday.
Valencian regional President Carlos Mazón urged people to stay at home, saying travel by road was difficult due to fallen trees and wrecked vehicles. Rescue efforts were hampered by downed power lines and power outages, and the regional emergency service responded to some 30,000 calls, Mazón said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters in Brussels that the EU will “help coordinate the rescue teams” using its Copernicus geo-monitoring satellite system.
Some residents appealed for news of their missing loved ones via social media, television and radio broadcasts.
Leonardo Enrique told RTVE that his family searched for hours for his 40-year-old son, Leonardo Enrique Rivera, who was driving a delivery van when the rain began. His son sent a message saying his van was flooding and that he had been hit by another vehicle near Ribarroja, an industrial town that is among the worst affected, Enrique said.
Asia needs to spend much more
to adapt to climate change
BANGKOK | Countries in Asia will suffer worse damage from the climate crisis than other regions and are falling far behind in spending on improvements to limit the damage and adapt to changing weather patterns and natural disasters, the Asian Development Bank said in a report released Thursday.
The report said financing needs in developing Asian countries to cope with climate change range from $102 billion to $431 billion a year. That far exceeds the $34 billion committed to those purposes in 2021-2022, the Manila, Philippines-based regional development bank said.
Developing Asia accounted for nearly half of all global emissions in 2021, the latest year for comprehensive data, with China accounting for two-thirds of that and South Asia nearly 20%, the report said. That’s because even though emissions per person remain far lower than in Europe, Japan and North America, it is the world’s most populous region, home to about 70% of all human kind.
Most countries in the region have ratified treaties on climate change and presented national plans to cut their carbon emissions, but most also still lack clear road maps to reach “net zero” carbon emissions, the report said.
Countering moves toward greater reliance on renewable energy such as solar and wind power, regional governments were providing $600 billion in support for fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal in 2022, it said. The subsidies make fuels cheaper, discouraging a shift to cleaner energy.
The report noted that the rate of sea level rises is about double the global average in the Asia-Pacific and about 300 million people in the region would face the risk of coastal inundation if sea ice in Antarctica collapses. Worsening storm surges also mean that China, India, Bangladesh and Vietnam would be the most affected, with damage amounting to an average of $3 trillion a year.
At the same time, higher temperatures are hurting worker productivity and health, said the report, which estimated that regional economies might see their gross domestic products decline by 17% by 2070 in a worst-case scenario of high carbon emissions. Such a scenario would also result in a doubling of the destructive power of tropical cyclones and storms, as weather grows more volatile and extreme.
The trends are already “locked in,” and warming will continue for decades, though the full implications of climate “tipping points,” such as warming seas melting polar ice caps, are not fully understood, the report said. Meanwhile, environments that usually would “capture” carbon emissions, such as the oceans and tropical forests, are changing so much that they instead are becoming sources of carbon emissions, through forest fires and other events.
The benefits of limited and adapting to climate change far outweigh the costs, the report contended. The ADB estimates that “aggressive decarbonization” could create 1.5 million energy sector jobs by 2050, while also preventing up to 346,000 deaths a year from air pollution by 2030.
By some estimates, poverty could increase by 64%–117% by 2030 under a high-emissions climate scenario, relative to no climate change, and the entire regional economy could fall by about 17%. The worst declines are forecast for Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and India and will deepen over time.
The report said the largest losses will be through reduced productivity, followed by fisheries, flooding and farming.
But governments can act to reduce the worst damage, the report said, pointing to the example of flood shelters in Bangladesh, which reduced deaths from catastrophic storms from hundreds of thousands of people in the past to fewer than 100 in recent years up to 2020.
“There is no avoiding the impacts of climate change, so stronger policy responses are needed to minimize loss and damage,” it said.
Fourth mass coral bleaching
prompts UN emergency session
CALI, Colombia | The United Nations, scientists and governments made an urgent call Wednesday for increased funding to protect coral reefs under threat of extinction.
Research this year shows that 77% of the world’s reefs are affected by bleaching, mainly due to warming ocean waters amid human-caused climate change. It’s the largest and fourth mass global bleaching on record and is impacting both hemispheres, United Nations Capital Development Fund said.
The findings prompted a U.N. special emergency session — typically called to address escalating conflicts or natural disasters — on corals to be convened on sidelines of the U.N. biodiversity summit, known as COP16, nearing its end after two weeks in Cali, Colombia.
Coral reefs are vital ecosystems that support over 25% of marine life and nearly a billion people, many relying on reefs for food security, coastal protection and livelihoods, the U.N. development fund said.
After the emergency session, the governments of New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany and France made new pledges totaling around $30 million to the U.N. fund for coral reefs established in 2020. By 2030, the fund seeks to leverage up to $3 billion in public and private finance to support coral reef conservation efforts. Around $225 million has been raised to date.
“Protecting our ocean and its precious habitats is fundamental to life on earth,” said U.K. Minister for Nature Mary Creagh. “But without urgent action, the world’s coral reefs face extinction from global heating, acidification, disease, and pollution; a vital ecosystem lost within our lifetime.”
Next year, a U.N. ocean conference will take place in Nice, France, and countries are being urged beforehand to pledge more to the U.N. global fund for coral reefs with the aim of mobilizing an additional $150 million in donations by the conference.
“In 2024, climate change and other human impacts triggered the fourth mass coral reef bleaching event, the most extensive and devastating on record,” said Peter Thomson, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean. “With the window to protect these ecosystems closing rapidly, world leaders must act now.”
“We must secure a sustainable future for coral reefs and the countless lives that rely on them —before it’s too late,” Thomson said.
A change in water temperature can cause coral to drive out algae that provides nutrition, lose its color and become stressed. Coral may bleach for other reasons, such as extremely low tides, pollution or too much sunlight.
In the world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, bleaching affected 90% of the coral assessed in 2022. The Florida Coral Reef, the third-largest, experienced significant bleaching last year.
The first mass bleaching happened in 1998, the second between 2011-2013, the third in 2016, said Kenyan marine ecologist David Obura, who heads Coastal Oceans Research and Development in the Indian Ocean East Africa.
“They’re lasting more than one year at a time, which is worrying,” Obura said at the U.N. emergency session at COP16.
—From AP reports
