quinta-feira, 27 de outubro de 2022
War in Ukraine Likely to Speed, Not Slow, Shift to Clean Energy, I.E.A. Says
War in Ukraine Likely to Speed, Not Slow, Shift
to Clean Energy, I.E.A. Says
While some nations are burning more coal this year in
response to natural-gas shortages spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that
effect is expected to be short-lived.
Brad Plumer
By Brad
Plumer
Oct. 27,
2022
Updated
7:11 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/27/climate/global-clean-energy-iea.html
WASHINGTON
— The energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to speed
up rather than slow down the global transition away from fossil fuels and
toward cleaner technologies like wind, solar and electric vehicles, the world’s
leading energy agency said Thursday.
While some
countries have been burning more fossil fuels such as coal this year in
response to natural gas shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, that effect is
expected to be short-lived, the International Energy Agency said in its annual
World Energy Outlook, a 524-page report that forecasts global energy trends to
2050.
Instead,
for the first time, the agency now predicts that worldwide demand for every
type of fossil fuel will peak in the near future.
One major
reason is that many countries have responded to soaring prices for fossil fuels
this year by embracing wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear power plants,
hydrogen fuels, electric vehicles and electric heat pumps. In the United
States, Congress approved more than $370 billion in spending for such
technologies under the recent Inflation Reduction Act. Japan is pursuing a new
“green transformation” program that will help fund nuclear power, hydrogen and
other low-emissions technologies. China, India and South Korea have all
ratcheted up national targets for renewable and nuclear power.
And yet,
the shift toward cleaner sources of energy still isn’t happening fast enough to
avoid dangerous levels of global warming, the agency said, not unless
governments take much stronger action to reduce their planet-warming carbon dioxide
emissions over the next few years.
Based on
current policies put in place by national governments, global coal use is
expected to start declining in the next few years, natural gas demand is likely
to hit a plateau by the end of this decade and oil use is projected to level
off by the mid-2030s.
Meanwhile,
global investment in clean energy is now expected to rise from $1.3 trillion in
2022 to more than $2 trillion annually by 2030, a significant shift, the agency
said.
“It’s
notable that many of these new clean energy targets aren’t being put in place
solely for climate change reasons,” said Fatih Birol, the agency’s executive
director, in an interview. “Increasingly, the big drivers are energy security
as well as industrial policy — a lot of countries want to be at the leading
edge of the energy industries of the future.”
Current
energy policies put the world on track to reach peak carbon dioxide emissions
by 2025 and warm roughly 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100
compared with preindustrial levels, the energy agency estimated. That is in
line with separate projections released Wednesday by the United Nations, which
analyzed nations’ stated promises to tackle emissions.
In Paris in
2015, world leaders agreed to try to limit average global warming to around 1.5
degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to avoid some of the most dire and
irreversible risks from climate change, such as widespread crop failures or
ecosystem collapse. That would require much steeper cuts in greenhouse gases,
with emissions not just peaking in the next few years but falling nearly in
half by the end of this decade, scientists have said. The planet has already
warmed an average of about 1.1 degrees Celsius.
Climate
pledges fall short. Countries are failing to live up to their commitments to
fight climate change, pointing Earth toward a future marked by more intense
fires, drought and other havoc, according to a new U.N. report. Just 26 of 193
nations that agreed last year to step up their climate actions have followed
through with more ambitious plans.
Protest
tactics spark debate. Desperate to end complacency about the climate crisis,
some climate activists are resorting to high profile tactics, like throwing
food at priceless artwork in museums. The actions have gone viral and set off
an international storm of outrage and debate.
Shifting
patterns. The melting of the snowpack in the high Cascades has long been a
source of sustenance in the Pacific Northwest. But as climate change makes
seasons less predictable and precipitation more variable, people there are
reimagining the region’s future and the tools that will be needed to manage it.
Facing
drought. The story of the Netherlands’ long struggles against excess water is
written all over its boggy landscape. Now that climate change is drying it out,
the Dutch are hoping to engineer once again their way to safety — only this
time, by figuring out how to hold onto water instead of flushing it out.
A more
extreme monsoon. South Asia’s annual monsoon is inextricably linked, culturally
and economically, to much of Asia, bringing life-giving water to nearly
one-quarter of the world’s population. But climate change is making the monsoon
more erratic, less dependable and even dangerous, with more violent rainfall as
well as worsening dry spells.
With each
fraction of a degree of warming, tens of millions more people worldwide would
be exposed to life-threatening heat waves, food and water scarcity, and coastal
flooding while millions more mammals, insects, birds and plants would
disappear.
“If we want
to hit those more ambitious climate targets, we’d likely need to see about $4
trillion in clean energy investment by 2030,” Dr. Birol said, or double what
the agency currently projects. “In particular, there’s not nearly enough
investment going into the developing world.”
This year,
global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are expected to rise roughly
1 percent and approach record highs, in part because of an uptick in coal use
in places like Europe as countries scramble to replace lost Russian gas. (Coal
is the most polluting of all fossil fuels.)
Still, that
is a far smaller increase than some analysts had feared when war in Ukraine
first broke out. The rise in emissions would have been three times as large had
it not been for a rapid deployment of wind turbines, solar panels and electric
vehicles worldwide, the agency said. Soaring energy prices and weak economic
growth in Europe and China also contributed to keep emissions down.
And the
recent rise in coal use may prove fleeting. European nations are currently
planning to install roughly 50 gigawatts worth of renewable power next year,
which would be more than enough to supplant this year’s increase in coal
generation. And globally, the agency does not expect investment in new coal
plants to increase beyond what was already expected.
Russia,
which had been the world’s leading exporter of fossil fuels, is expected to be
hit especially hard by the energy disruptions it has largely created. As European
nations race to reduce their reliance on Russian oil and gas, Russia is likely
to face challenges in finding new markets in Asia, particularly for its natural
gas, the report said. As a result, Russian fossil fuel exports are unlikely to
return to their prewar levels.
But even
though the current energy crisis is expected to be a boon for cleaner
technologies in the long run, it is exacting a painful toll now, the report
found.
Governments
around the world have already committed roughly $500 billion this year to
shield consumers from soaring energy prices. And while European nations
currently appear to have enough natural gas in storage to get them through a
mild winter this year, the report warns that next winter in Europe “could be
even tougher” as stocks are drawn down and new supplies to replace Russian gas,
such as increased shipments from the United States or Qatar, are slow to come
online.
The
situation looks even more dire in developing countries such as Pakistan and
Bangladesh, which are facing energy shortages as deliveries of liquefied
natural gas are diverted to Europe. Nearly 75 million people around the world
who recently gained access to electricity are likely to lose it this year, the
report said. If that happens, it would be the first time in a decade that the
number of people worldwide who lack access to modern energy has risen.
There is
still a possibility that soaring energy prices could produce social unrest and
pushback against climate and clean energy policies in some countries. While the
report concluded that climate change policies are not chiefly responsible for
the spike in prices — instead, it notes
that renewable power and home weatherization efforts have actually blunted the
impact of energy shocks in many regions — there is always the risk that
governments could feel pressured to change course, Dr. Birol said.
The new
report comes less than two weeks before nations are set to gather at U.N.
climate talks in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, where diplomats will discuss whether
and how to step up efforts to curb fossil fuel emissions and provide more
financial aid from richer to poorer nations.
Separately
on Thursday, the United Nations released its annual “emissions gap” report
which details actions nations could take if they hope to slash emissions
roughly in half this decade and stabilize global warming at around 1.5 degrees
Celsius to avoid a drastic increase in heat waves, droughts, flooding and
wildfires across the globe.
The report
notes that most countries have now announced ambitious “net zero” emissions
goals — broad promises to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere by a
certain date — that, if followed, could limit global warming to 1.8 degrees
Celsius. But the report says these targets are “currently not credible” since
most countries don’t have policies in place to achieve them.
And nations
have delayed so long in cutting emissions that they will now have to pursue
“rapid transformation of societies” to meet those net-zero goals, the report
said. That might include, for instance, rapidly phasing out conventional coal
power or ending the sale of gasoline-powered cars over the next decade.
“Can we
reduce greenhouse gas emissions by so much in that time frame? Perhaps not. But
we must try,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations
Environment Program, said in a statement. “Every fraction of a degree matters:
to vulnerable communities, to species and ecosystems, and to every one of us.”
Brad Plumer
is a climate reporter specializing in policy and technology efforts to cut
carbon dioxide emissions. At The Times, he has also covered international
climate talks and the changing energy landscape in the United States. @bradplumer
‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms: local election officials fear for safety
‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms:
local election officials fear for safety
In two rural California counties, voters are showing
increasing hostility and aggression toward election workers
Dani
Anguiano in Redding, California
@dani_anguiano
Thu 27 Oct
2022 06.00 EDT
Inside the
office of the Shasta county clerk and registrar of voters, which runs elections
for about 111,000 people in this part of far northern California, Cathy Darling
Allen can see all the security improvements she would make if she had the
budget.
“We have
plexi on the counter downstairs for Covid but that won’t stop a person. It’s
literally just clamped to the counters,” the county clerk and registrar said.
For about $50,000, the office could secure the front, limiting access to
upstairs offices, she estimated. Another county put bulletproof glass in their
lobby years earlier, she knew, something officials there at one point
considered removing, though not any more.
Elections
offices didn’t used to think about security in this way, Allen said. Now they
can’t afford not to.
Following
Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge his defeat in the 2020 presidential
election, Allen says the once low-profile job of non-partisan local election
official has transformed in counties like hers. A culture of misinformation has
sown doubt in the US election system and subjected officials from Nevada to
Michigan to harassment and threats. The FBI has received more than 1,000
reports of threats against election workers in the past year alone.
In
California, officials in small, rural and underresourced counties such as
Shasta say they are encountering hostility and aggressive bullying from
residents who believe there is widespread voter fraud – many are inundating
local elections offices with public records requests as part of a relentless
quest to try to prove their claims.
Residents
in Shasta county have tried to intimidate election workers while acting as
observers, crowding around Allen during a tense election night confrontation in
June, and visiting voters’ homes while claiming to be a part of an “official
taskforce”. In north-eastern California’s Nevada county, the registrar-elect
had to take out a restraining order against residents who harassed her and
pushed their way into her office, assaulting a staffer, she said.
“It’s
really an unprecedented time,” said Kim Alexander, the president of the
non-partisan California Voter Foundation, a non-profit organization that works
on improving election processes. “A colleague recently referred to it as a sort
of madness that’s taken hold.”
On a
Tuesday in September, speaker after speaker went before the Shasta county board
of supervisors decrying the “election fraud” they believed – without evidence –
is taking place. Dressed in red, white and blue, the residents described their
effort as a David-and-Goliath-like battle.
“It’s
called a citizen’s audit and we’ve been going out and collecting the evidence
that shows there is fraud in our process,” one speaker said. “This is our Tiananmen
Square. We’re going to stand in front of the tanks and say no more to the
machines.”
The group
of residents casting doubt over Shasta’s elections is small but highly visible,
and speaks regularly at county board meetings. They have filed dozens of public
records requests to Allen’s office, showed up in large numbers for election
observation, and even visited the homes of certain voters while wearing gear
labeled “official voter taskforce” – an act that Allen said may amount to voter
intimidation.
Their
opposition comes amid broader political upheaval in this rural northern county,
stemming from anger among some residents over Trump’s loss and pandemic
restrictions and vaccine mandates imposed by California’s progressive
government.
The anger
coalesced into an anti-establishment movement, backed with unprecedented
outside funding from a Connecticut millionaire and supported by the area’s
militia groups, that led to the recall of a longtime county supervisor in
February. Behavior seen during that election prompted Allen’s office to make
security changes, including tracking everyone who enters the facility.
During the
primaries in June, when the school superintendent, district attorney and sheriff
were on the ballot, a crowd of observers tried to intimidate county staff,
Allen said, and someone installed a trail camera outside the office, seemingly
intending to monitor election workers. The sheriff stationed deputies outside
the office. After four of the candidates backed by the anti-establishment group
lost outright – Allen beat her opponent and was re-elected to her fifth-term –
the candidates requested a hand recount.
The
county’s use of Dominion voting machines, which Trump supporters have maligned
as part of a false conspiracy theory that the company played a role in swinging
the 2020 election for Biden, has drawn particular concern from residents who
believe in widespread election fraud. Some of them have attempted to share
content with Allen, such as 2000 Mules, a debunked documentary that has
promoted false claims about voter fraud.
One
high-profile figure in the election denial movement recently held a $20 event
at a church in the area. The grandstanding from people making money from spreading
debunked narratives around elections is particularly frustrating for Allen.
If there
are problems around elections, she said, she would rely on the actual experts
she knows who have worked in the field for decades and share information for
free: “I guarantee you, they’re not gonna charge people 20 bucks a head at a
church in Redding, California, to tell the story. That’s making you a dollar,
that’s not trying to make anything better.”
Allen’s
office has seen aggressive behavior and bullying, she said, but no threats yet.
Given the threats elections officials across the US are facing, she suspects
it’s only a matter of time.
“This is
not what anybody signed up for,” she said. “I’ve had people tell me I should
have private security. It’s not right. But it’s the world we live in right
now.”
‘Just another form of harassment’
About 150
miles away in the Sierra Nevada foothills in eastern California, Natalie Adona
said her office, too, was experiencing the same challenges: “If it’s happening
in Shasta, chances are it’s also happening here. The loudest would-be
disruptors of elections share information between our counties.”
Political
tensions in Nevada county, which is home to about 100,000 people in historic
towns and settlements that were at the center of California’s Gold Rush, have
been rising since after the 2020 election, said Adona, the assistant county
clerk recorder.
Earlier
this year a group of residents attempted an aggressive and ultimately
unsuccessful campaign to recall the entire board of supervisors, accusing them
of enabling “crimes against humanity” for supporting Covid safety measures.
While
running for her position this spring, Adona said she and her office were
subjected to a months-long public harassment campaign, as well as racist
language in an election mailer that featured a darkened photo of her and
efforts to disqualify her over false claims that she failed to pay filing fees.
After Adona won by nearly 70%, opponents requested a recount.
“I
considered it to be just another form of harassment and I think one of the
other purposes was to try to get at other documents that aren’t normally
[obtainable] in the regular observation process,” she said.
At the same
time, her office has received a flurry of public records requests in recent
months that appear to be copy-and-pasted, Adona said: “What we’re today is
either deliberate attempts to put a kink in elections process or just sort of
an inundation of requests that really reflect how little the requestor knows
about elections.”
Adona has
also received one threat, she said, which was not actionable by law
enforcement.
“It’s
certainly not at the level of Georgia or Wisconsin. I do feel fortunate but at
the same time a lot of it is unnerving,” she said.
The Nevada
county office has increased its budget for security at its headquarters and is
working more closely with law enforcement.
“I have the
best job in the world. I get to serve voters, I get to serve the public but
over the last few years election administration has become harder,” she said.
“It’s raised a lot of questions for my team about how we keep in-person
election workers safe, how do we keep our staff safe and at the same time offer
the same levels of transparency in elections the public deserves.”
‘We haven’t had a break in about five years’
Across the
US the climate has grown so tense that one in five election workers has said
they are unlikely to remain in their positions through the next presidential
election, according to a survey conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice.
About one in six say they have been personally threatened.
Throughout
California, small but vocal groups inspired by uninformed or malevolent actors,
have been led to believe false narratives about how the state conducts
elections, Alexander, of the California Voter Foundation, said, prompting the
organization to make the safety of election workers increasingly a focus.
The group,
along with the Brennan Center, recently sponsored legislation signed into law
by the California governor that allows workers to keep their home addresses
confidential.
“I never
imagined when I started working on elections security almost 30 years ago that
it would include the physical security of people who run our elections,”
Alexander said.
But things
have changed rapidly, she said. Her organization is trying to support election
officials by providing de-escalation training and other resources to their
offices. More help is needed, and has been for a long time.
“The chronic
underfunding of election administration in the US is one of the conditions that
led to the vulnerability of our election workers. If the offices weren’t
understaffed and underresourced in the first place they would have more
security,” she said.
California
election offices were already challenged by back-to-back elections for the last
few years, including 2021’s recall election of the governor. Months after that,
Shasta county had its local recall election.
“We haven’t
had a break in about five years,” said Allen, who is also on the board of
directors for the California Voter Foundation. “None of my staff has been able
to really disconnect – not for any length of time. I can’t even go to the top
of Mount Lassen, where I know no one can get a hold of me.”
In the
past, demystifying the election process with guided tours of the office and a
walk-through of their procedures helped allay people’s fears, Allen said. This
year, the office is attempting to fight against the tide of misinformation and
disinformation with a steady trickle of good information publicized by her
office through social media and webinars, she said, attempting to reach the
voters they can. The county recently hired someone to work on voter education
and outreach.
But as
misinformation proliferates, there’s a growing contingency of people who won’t
believe any message coming out of the office, she said.
“I don’t
know how to dissuade people from a belief that they have swallowed wholesale
like it’s a religion,” she said. “We’ll still try.”
Still,
Allen remains hopeful things will get better. On a table in her office is a
stack of thank you cards from residents expressing gratitude for her office’s
work. She won re-election by a massive margin.
“In June,
all the folks who believe in some of this bad information about election fraud
and elections being stolen – six of those folks ran for office in June’s
election – and none of them won. Not one of them,” she said. “To me, that’s the
story: the voters of Shasta county saw through that.”
As far as
the national challenges for election workers, “this too shall pass,” Allen
said.
“I do think
it’s going to get worse before it gets better – but it will get better,” she
said.
Watch live: Russian President Vladimir Putin is speaking at a think tank...
Vladimir
Putin has arrived on stage and is giving the opening remarks of his annual
speech at the meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club think tank.
Climate crisis: UN finds ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’
Climate crisis: UN finds ‘no credible pathway to
1.5C in place’
Failure to cut carbon emissions means ‘rapid
transformation of societies’ is only option to limit impacts, report says
Damian
Carrington Environment editor
@dpcarrington
Thu 27 Oct
2022 12.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/27/climate-crisis-un-pathway-1-5-c
There is
“no credible pathway to 1.5C in place”, the UN’s environment agency has said,
and the failure to reduce carbon emissions means the only way to limit the
worst impacts of the climate crisis is a “rapid transformation of societies”.
The UN
environment report analysed the gap between the CO2 cuts pledged by countries
and the cuts needed to limit any rise in global temperature to 1.5C, the
internationally agreed target. Progress has been “woefully inadequate” it
concluded.
Current
pledges for action by 2030, if delivered in full, would mean a rise in global
heating of about 2.5C and catastrophic extreme weather around the world. A rise
of 1C to date has caused climate disasters in countries from Pakistan to Puerto
Rico.
If the
long-term pledges by countries to hit net zero emissions by 2050 were
delivered, global temperature would rise by 1.8C. But the glacial pace of
action means meeting even this temperature limit was not credible, the UN
report said.
Countries
agreed at the Cop26 climate summit a year ago to increase their pledges. But
with Cop27 looming, only a couple of dozen have done so and the new pledges
would shave just 1% off emissions in 2030. Global emissions must fall by almost
50% by that date to keep the 1.5C target alive.
Inger
Andersen, the executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said:
“This report tells us in cold scientific terms what nature has been telling us
all year through deadly floods, storms and raging fires: we have to stop
filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and stop doing it fast.
“We had our
chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a
root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from
accelerating climate disaster.
“It is a
tall, and some would say impossible, order to reform the global economy and
almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but we must try,” she said.
“Every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to ecosystems,
and to every one of us.”
Andersen
said action would also bring cleaner air, green jobs and access to electricity
for millions.
The UN
secretary general, António Guterres, said: “Emissions remain at dangerous and
record highs and are still rising. We must close the emissions gap before
climate catastrophe closes in on us all.”
Prof David
King, a former UK chief scientific adviser, said: “The report is a dire warning
to all countries – none of whom are doing anywhere near enough to manage the
climate emergency.”
The report
found that existing carbon-cutting policies would cause 2.8C of warming, while
pledged policies cut this to 2.6C. Further pledges, dependent on funding
flowing from richer to poorer countries, cut this again to 2.4C.
New reports
from the International Energy Agency and the UN’s climate body reached
similarly stark conclusions, with the latter finding that the national pledges
barely cut projected emissions in 2030 at all, compared with 2019 levels.
The UNEP
report said the required societal transformation could be achieved through
government action, including on regulation and taxes, redirecting the
international financial system, and changes to consumer behaviour.
It said the
transition to green electricity, transport and buildings was under way, but
needed to move faster. All sectors had to avoid locking in new fossil fuel
infrastructure, contrary to plans in many countries, including the UK, to
develop new oil and gas fields. A study published this week found “large
consensus” across all published research that new oil and gas fields are
“incompatible” with the 1.5C target.
The UNEP
report said about a third of climate-heating emissions came from the global
food system and these were set to double by 2050. But the sector could be
transformed if governments changed farm subsidies – which are overwhelmingly
harmful to the environment – and food taxes, cut food waste and helped develop
new low-carbon foods.
Individual
citizens could adopt greener, healthier diets as well, the report said.
Andersen
said: “I’m not preaching one diet over another, but we need to be mindful that
if we all want steak every night for dinner, it won’t compute.”
Redirecting
global financial flows to green investments was vital, the report said. Most
financial groups had shown limited action to date, despite their stated
intentions, due to short-term interests, it said. A transformation to a
low-emissions economy was expected to need at least $4tn-6tn a year in
investment, the report said, about 2% of global financial assets.
Despite
Andersen’s doubts that the necessary emission cuts can be made by 2030, she
pointed to the plummeting costs of renewables, the rollout of electric
transport, major climate legislation in the US, and moves by pension funds to
back low-carbon investments.
“It’s my
job to be the ever hopeful person, but [also] to be the realistic optimist,”
she said. “[This report] is the mirror that we’re holding up to the world.
Obviously, I want to be proven wrong and see countries taking ambitious steps. But
so far, that’s not what we’ve seen.”
Governo envia inspectores do SEF para Timor para travar imigração ilegal
IMIGRAÇÃO
Governo envia inspectores do SEF para Timor para travar
imigração ilegal
O director nacional do SEF proferiu um despacho, nesta
terça-feira, a convidar os inspectores a candidatarem-se, uma vez que está
previsto que entrem em funções no aeroporto de Díli já no próximo dia 2 de
Novembro.
Sónia Trigueirão
26 de Outubro de
2022, 6:06
Os dois
inspectores vão prestar apoio e assessoria técnica às Autoridades de Fronteira
de Timor Leste, no Aeroporto Internacional de Díli, pelo período máximo de três
semanas NUNO FERREIRA SANTOS
Perante o aumento
do fluxo de cidadãos timorenses nas fronteiras aéreas, que procuram Portugal sem
que tenham condições para aqui residir, o Governo decidiu enviar dois
inspectores do Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF) para Timor-Leste.
Ao que o PÚBLICO
apurou, os dois inspectores vão prestar apoio e assessoria técnica às
Autoridades de Fronteira de Timor-Leste, no Aeroporto Internacional de Díli,
pelo período máximo de três semanas, “mas, caso a situação assim o determine,
este apoio será efectuado nos mesmos moldes nos períodos subsequentes”. Está
previsto que estes profissionais entrem em funções já no próximo dia 2 de
Novembro, quarta-feira da próxima semana.
O apoio foi
acordado no âmbito do quadro de cooperação entre o Ministério da Administração
Interna e o Ministério do Interior da República de Timor-Leste.
Neste sentido, o
director nacional do SEF, Fernando Pinheiro da Silva, proferiu nesta
terça-feira um despacho onde convida os elementos com a categoria de inspector
a candidatarem-se às duas vagas.
Segundo o
despacho a que o PÚBLICO teve acesso, na selecção dos candidatos, será tida em
conta “a experiência no controlo de fronteira aérea, a conveniência do serviço
e o normal funcionamento das unidades orgânicas do SEF”.
É ainda
salientado que “os elementos designados não poderão gozar férias no período da
deslocação e que as candidaturas devem dar entrada nos recursos humanos do SEF
até 28 de Outubro, às 13 horas”.
Esta medida surge
depois de terem sido noticiadas as condições precárias em que centenas de
timorenses estão a viver no nosso país — muitos foram encontrados a dormir nas
ruas de Lisboa.
Em Setembro, foi
a ministra Adjunta e dos Assuntos Parlamentares, Ana Catarina Mendes, quem deu
conta aos deputados da comissão parlamentar dos Assuntos Constitucionais,
Direitos, Liberdades e Garantias de que o Alto-Comissariado para as Migrações
(ACM) já tinha identificado 664 cidadãos timorenses irregulares a viver em
Portugal, na sua maioria homens.
A ministra
revelou ainda as condições precárias em que muitos estavam a viver. Segundo Ana
Catarina Mendes, em Julho, foram encontrados 76 timorenses a dormir na rua, no
Largo do Martim Moniz, em Lisboa, e, dias depois, outros tantos em Beja e
Serpa.
No entanto, nesta
terça-feira, esses números já estão desactualizados: são muitos mais. Em
entrevista à agência Lusa, a secretária de Estado da Igualdade e Migrações,
Isabel Almeida Rodrigues, que coordena o grupo de trabalho criado no início de
Setembro pelo Governo para acompanhar o fluxo de timorenses, precisou que foram
identificadas 825 pessoas em situação de vulnerabilidade. Segundo a mesma
governante, são sobretudo homens, jovens, com poucas qualificações e sem
domínio da língua portuguesa.
De acordo com
Isabel Almeida Rodrigues, o grupo de trabalho tem tentado dar apoio a estes
cidadãos, nomeadamente ajudando-os na aprendizagem da língua portuguesa e
inserindo-os em programas de capacitação e formação para facilitar a integração
no mercado de trabalho e na comunidade. Em alguns casos, a ajuda passa por
apoiar o regresso a Timor. Porém, segundo a secretária de Estado, “a grande
maioria destas pessoas pretende ficar em Portugal”. Pelo menos “720 já
procederam à sua manifestação de interesse, tendo em vista a regularização da
sua situação jurídica”, revelou.
Segundo noticiou
o Expresso, o SEF já participou ao Ministério Público 11 situações por indícios
de auxílio à imigração ilegal e de tráfico de pessoas, em vários locais, de
norte a sul, o que levou à abertura de uma investigação por parte do
Departamento Central de Investigação e Acção Penal (DCIAP).
Ao que tudo
indica, também segundo o semanário, há uma nova rota migratória para Portugal
que já foi alimentada por nepaleses, paquistaneses, indianos ou bengalis, mas
que agora envolve os timorenses.
Viajam para
Portugal, via Dubai e Madrid, atrás de “falsas promessas de trabalho nas redes
sociais, agências de auxílio à imigração (em Timor) e empresas de trabalho
temporário (em Portugal), cada uma a ficar com uma parte dos até seis mil
dólares pagos à cabeça pela viagem, contrato e inscrição na Segurança Social”.
Depois são
deixados à sua sorte ou trabalham sem receber salário porque ainda são
obrigados a pagar o alojamento e a comida.
Britain wants an election. It’s not getting one
.jpg)
Britain wants an election. It’s not getting one
The UK political system — and the Conservatives’
rock-bottom poll ratings — mean public clamor for a general election will be
ignored.
BY EMILIO
CASALICCHIO
OCTOBER 27,
2022 4:03 AM
LONDON —
Now on their third prime minister since the last general election, the
despairing British public want a vote on who runs the country. They appear to
be out of luck.
New U.K.
premier Rishi Sunak did not secure the 2019 election win for the Tories.
Neither did his predecessor Liz Truss, who instead for a chaotic 44 days tried
to rip up many of the economic and policy promises in Conservative manifesto.
It was, of
course, Boris Johnson who secured the Tories’ 80-seat majority almost three
years ago — before being kicked out of Downing Street in the summer by his own
MPs following a string of humiliating scandals. His replacement Truss, elected
by just 81,00 Conservative members, lasted less than two months before her
colleagues wielded the knife again.
This
carousel of leaders has left some observers pondering how Britain, can
repeatedly change its figurehead — not to mention, in Truss’ case, its entire
economic direction — without once consulting the public.
Unsurprisingly,
it’s a question opposition leader, Labour’s Keir Starmer, hopes to capitalize
on.
Asking
questions to the new PM in the House of Commons Wednesday, Starmer noted that
the last time Sunak took part in a vote — his head-to-head contest with Truss —
“he got trounced by the former prime minister … who herself got beaten by a
lettuce.”
“Let
working people have their say,” Starmer told the PM, “and call a general
election.”
A defiant
Sunak replied that his mandate “is based on a manifesto that we were elected on
— an election that we won, and they lost.”
Public
panic
Constitutionally,
Sunak is correct.
The U.K.
government retains total control over whether a snap election should be called
ahead of the January 2025 deadline for the next vote — unless dozens of Tory
MPs suddenly go rogue and decide to bring down their own regime via a
no-confidence vote in the Commons.
And the
Tories’ rock-bottom poll ratings mean any kind of electoral gamble is off the
table for the foreseeable future. Conservative support among the public — already
dire at the tail-end of the Johnson tenure — plunged to record lows under
Truss.
“The short
answer to anyone at home or abroad asking why the Conservatives don’t have an
election, is because they don’t have to have an election,” said Joe Twyman, director
at U.K. polling firm Deltapoll. “Given the situation the polls are in, they
would be assured of a loss.”
Under the
British political system, the public votes for a governing party rather than a
specific prime minister — and it’s for each party to pick its leader as and
when it sees fit. The set-up differs markedly from presidential systems in
places like France and the U.S., which are led by directly-elected heads of
state.
“It’s a
fundamental rule of a parliamentary democracy that it isn’t the prime minister
who wins a mandate at a general election, it’s the parliamentary party,” said
Catherine Haddon, a constitutional expert at the Institute for Government think
tank.
“Once you
start going down the route of arguing every prime minister needs to win a
general election to be able to hold the job, you are fundamentally changing the
system.”
Furthermore,
the U.K.’s “first-past-the-post” voting system tends to deliver single-party
rule, meaning coalition governments — which might collapse in times of
turbulence, so triggering an election — are historically rare.
So Sunak
retains a healthy parliamentary majority, inherited from Johnson’s 2019
victory.
Left
wanting
But the one
thing counting against the Conservatives is public opinion.
A YouGov
poll this week found 59 percent of the British public think Sunak should call
an election — including 38 percent of all Conservative voters — compared with
just 29 percent who thought he shouldn’t. That’s far higher than normal, and
way above even the peak figure of 41 percent who wanted an election at the
height of the Partygate scandal.
“Turmoil in
the government, with the Conservatives now two leaders removed from the one who
took them to election victory in 2019, has clearly convinced many Britons that
the time is right for a new vote,” said YouGov’s head of data journalism,
Matthew Smith.
An internal
poll for the opposition Labour Party this week found similar results, with
support for an election strongest among swing voters, according to a Labour
official. Even a third of those 2019 Conservative voters who are still planning
to vote the same way next time round want a snap election, the official said.
Those leaning toward Labour are even more enthusiastic about a fresh campaign.
Other
research confirms the public is getting restless. A focus group this week for
the non-partisan “More in Common” campaign found seven out of eight
participants wanted an election once the current economic crisis has died down
— a significant increase on previous exercises.
Luke Tryl,
the U.K. director of More in Common, said most people want “a choice over who
is in charge” — although he noted that the same people also often feel
conflicted, being “exhausted with the constant politics of the past few years.”
Consultants
at the agency Public First have found similar results in their own focus
groups. The firm’s founding partner James Frayne said demands for a general
election had “surged in recent weeks, and won’t be going anywhere.” He added:
“As far as most voters are concerned, one unelected PM screwed up the economy
so badly that another unelected PM must impose brutal austerity in response.”
Internal
dissent
Indeed,
even some Conservatives — chiefly those supportive of Boris Johnson — have
suggested an election is necessary following his departure from No. 10 Downing
Street.
Former
Cabinet Minister Nadine Dorries said publicly that an election would be
“impossible to avoid” after her fellow MPs rejected Johnson’s recent comeback
bid. Backbencher Christopher Chope and Tory peer Zac Goldsmith both made
similar claims.
“Imposing a
new prime minister no-one voted for goes against the grain of what is
democratic,” said one Johnson-supporting Conservative MP. “Colleagues who
removed Boris can’t have their cake and eat it. We’ve had a sh*t show since,
and appointing Rishi without a single vote is precarious. But colleagues insist
they don’t want a general election.”
For the
vast majority of Conservative MPs, who want to avoid a vote at all costs, Sunak
appears their best hope of calming the waters and so holding off the clamor for
an election.
“It is
legitimate to feel there should be an election,” said a former Johnson adviser.
“But in a world where there’s no general election, the best thing for everyone
is to have Rishi — because however well he ends up doing, I think he will be
quite calm, professional, and not trying to do crazy things that f*ck up all
our mortgages.”
Twyman,
from Deltapoll, suggested that ultimately, being accused of dodging democracy
is probably the “lesser of two evils” for the Tories.
“It doesn’t
look good for the Conservatives,” he said. “But a Labour majority of 300
doesn’t look good for the Conservatives either.”
Annabelle Dickson contributed reporting.
From the economy to Rwanda, Rishi Sunak inherits a hefty in-tray
.webp)
Analysis
From the economy to Rwanda, Rishi Sunak inherits
a hefty in-tray
Guardian
staff
As crises and party management problems loom, PM must
act quickly to try to reverse Tories’ poor poll ratings
Wed 26 Oct
2022 21.17 BST
Rishi Sunak
is inheriting a hefty in-tray of issues, with several looming crises and party
management problems piling up as he takes the reins as prime minister.
Given he
was out of government for about three months, Sunak has not been privy to some
of the day-to-day issues filling ministers’ red boxes. So he will have to act
quickly if he stands a chance of reversing the Conservative party’s
deteriorating poll ratings, and prove he can deliver.
Economy
Calming
jittery financial markets after the chaos of the mini-budget will be high on
Sunak’s list of immediate priorities, and the government will use its 17
November autumn statement to set out debt-cutting plans. Economists expect
about £40bn of savings could be needed. Swingeing cuts would be politically
difficult after a decade of austerity, and amid a cost of living emergency.
Whether
Sunak approves an inflation-matching rise for pensions and benefits is a vital
consideration.
Sky-high
energy bills have pushed inflation to a 40-year high, with households expected
to face a further increase in living costs next spring after the government
cuts short its energy price freeze.
Home Office
The Home
Office must decide whether to press on with the flagship policy to send people
seeking asylum to Rwanda. The deal has cost £120m, with more money yet to be
paid to a country with a poor human rights record.
The threat
of Rwanda has failed to stem the flow of migrants coming to the UK and
overwhelming the asylum system. The government is spending about £4.7m a day
housing asylum seekers in hotels.
Sunak must
also negotiate with Suella Braverman over immigration policy. Despite being
urged to ease access to work visas to counteract labour shortages and improve
growth, Braverman is keen to limit net migration to “tens of thousands”.
Police
funding and pay is also on the agenda but is expected to face further budget
cuts. Crime figures continue to soar to record levels, particularly those of
fraud, rape and violent crime.
Foreign
policy
Sunak’s
pre-eminent task is to reassure Ukraine and Washington that his leadership will
maintain continuity in the British support for the removal of Russian forces
from Ukraine. But he will also have to decide whether, in the interests of
party unity, he has to confront Brussels or instead expand on the tentative
signs that a new relationship can be established using the European Political
Council.
His Hindu
heritage has led to glowing coverage in the Indian media, but a trade deal
might still prove difficult with the return of Braverman to the Home Office.
On China,
Sunak said in the first leadership election that he was willing to close all
Confucius Institutes in the country. He is also under pressure from his
backbenchers over exports to Xinjiang, and the behaviour of the Chinese
consulate towards protesters has inflamed the mood.
Defence
Sunak may
have promised Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Britain’s support for Ukraine
will remain “as strong as ever” under his premiership in his first call to an
overseas leader on Tuesday, but the reality is that such rhetoric is the easy
part. A row over defence spending could yet loom.
Truss’s
pledge to sharply increase defence spending to 3% of GDP was not yet
reconfirmed by No 10 on Wednesday. Lifting defence spending to 3% from the
current 2.1% would cost an extra £23bn in real terms and is not obviously
necessary, given other spending priorities and wider pressures on the public
finances.
Brexit and
Northern Ireland
Talks to
end the row over the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol are at a delicate stage
and Sunak’s decision to keep the Northern Ireland team in position may help
around the negotiating table.
Both the EU
and the UK have said they are determined to find a negotiated solution to the
dispute before Easter, the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday
agreement, and Sunak will not want to trigger a trade war with the EU by taking
unilateral action on Northern Ireland.
But with
the DUP’s repeated warnings that they will not return to Stormont unless their
red lines in Brexit talks are met, Northern Ireland has the potential to create
unexpected booby traps for Sunak.
If the
Stormont executive is not restored by Thursday there is the prospect of an
assembly election in December that could entrench polarisation and further
erode the power-sharing institutions established by the 1998 Good Friday
agreement.
The
short-term solution is to persuade the DUP to end a boycott, which means
addressing the party’s objections to the post-Brexit Irish Sea border. That
complicates the UK’s negotiations with Brussels over the protocol.
Scotland
Sunak has
stressed that he wants to “work constructively” with Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish
National party “on our shared challenges” – but the gulf between them is likely
too great.
Both await
a supreme court ruling expected next year on whether Holyrood can hold a
Scottish independence referendum in 2023 without Westminster’s approval: there
is no guarantee judges will agree with the UK government that Holyrood cannot
do so. The UK may face that divisive vote next October after all.
Education
Headteachers
in England are grappling with the sharp rise in energy costs and inflation,
along with the 5% rise in teachers’ pay that is wreaking havoc with their
budgets. Many heads are already warning of major cuts needed to balance their
books.
Teacher
retention and staff shortages are also becoming a problem, while schools and
universities across the UK are expected to face industrial action this winter
over pay or pensions.
Students in
further and higher education also face cost of living pressures, meaning that
more students may be forced to drop out. Councils fear that cuts in government
spending may further imperil special needs and disability provisions already
under huge stress.
Health
Sunak
inherits an NHS at breaking point, and one experts agree cannot survive further
cuts.
How to
deliver a “stronger” NHS, as he promised, while slashing funding across
Whitehall – including the Department of Health and Social Care – remains
unclear.
But urgent
action is required to prevent the NHS from collapsing this winter.
There are
now more than 132,000 vacancies across the NHS, the number of patients on the
waiting list for treatment has topped 7 million in England alone, and emergency
care services are alarmingly overstretched. Underfunded social care needs more
support, too.
Meanwhile,
hundreds of thousands of health workers will vote over the next few weeks on
whether to strike over pay. Some are really struggling with the cost of living
crisis, and many are jumping ship to better paid jobs in the retail sector and
elsewhere.
Environment
Sunak has a
lot on his plate when it comes to the environment. First up is the promised
review of the nature-friendly farming payments scheme, which was expected this
week.
The dormant
Cuadrilla shale gas extraction (fracking) site at Preston New Road, near
Blackpool
The dormant
Cuadrilla shale gas extraction (fracking) site at Preston New Road, near
Blackpool. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Sunak has
confirmed that the fracking ban would remain as per the 2019 manifesto. This
was an easy way for him to win plaudits from backbenchers over the divisive
issue.
But he will
have to decide his approach to renewables. He criticised solar farms on
farmland during the summer’s leadership race but there is a train of thought
that he was trying to match the more militant Truss on the issue in order to
appeal to Tory voters.
Levelling
up
On the face
of it, Sunak’s appointment will be welcomed by those who think levelling up is
key to fixing Britain’s imbalanced economy. But any enthusiasm comes from a low
base: the project stalled for three years under Johnson, despite being his
defining policy, and then appeared to be quietly binned by Truss,.
Michael
Gove’s return to the department is promising, although tempered by the fact
that its key adviser – former Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane –
has decided instead to work with Labour. The most pressing issue facing Sunak
here is transport: a truly levelled-up country cannot run on Britain’s
juddering, unreliable train lines.
Party unity
After a
bitterly divisive leadership race over the last few months, Sunak will have to
be wary of making any missteps that risk fracturing party unity too much. Doing
so will probably only make the Conservatives poll rating tank further and lead
to another break down of discipline in the party’s ranks.
His careful
reshuffle, which kept on many of the same ministers who were in Truss and
Johnson’s cabinet, was the first step, and reinstating the ban on fracking was
a shrewd move designed to stop any further inter-party splintering.
Potential
flashpoints Sunak will need to watch out for rebellions on include keeping
international aid spending below the 0.7% of GDP target, amendments to the
Northern Ireland protocol bill and any threat to the triple lock on pensions.
Concerns about his leadership could also build depending on how the
Conservatives do in two forthcoming byelections in the City of Chester and West
Lancashire, as well as at local elections next May.
Reporting
team Aubrey Allegreti, Rajeev Syal, Richard Partington, Patrick Wintour, Dan
Sabbagh, Lisa O’Carroll, Rory Carroll, Severin Carrell, Richard Adams, Andrew
Gregory, Helena Horton and Josh Halliday
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