1 US quits Paris climate deal (Oliver Milman, David
Simith & Damian Carrington in The Guardian) Donald Trump has confirmed that
he will withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, in effect ensuring
the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases will quit the
international effort to address dangerous global warming.
The US will remove itself from the deal, joining
Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not party to the Paris agreement.
There will be no penalty for leaving, with the Paris deal based upon the
premise of voluntary emissions reductions by participating countries.
“In order to fulfil my solemn duty to the US and its
citizens, the US will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, but begin negotiations
to re-enter either the Paris accords or a really entirely new transaction, on
terms that are fair to the US,” the president said.
But Italy, France and Germany issued a joint
statement shortly after Trump’s speech saying they believed the treaty could
not be renegotiated. Trump said at the White House: “The fact that the Paris
deal hamstrings the US while empowering some of the world’s top polluting
countries should expel any doubt as to why foreign lobbyists should wish to
keep our beautiful country tied up and bound down … That’s not going to happen
while I’m president, I’m sorry.”
He added: “I was elected to represent the citizens
of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, issued a rare
statement saying the new administration had joined “a small handful of nations
that reject the future”. But he said that US states, cities and businesses
“will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future
generations the one planet we’ve got”.
In 2015, nearly 200 countries agreed to curb
greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent the runaway climate change that
would occur should temperatures spiral 2C or more above the pre-industrial era.
2 Dutch setting up hyperloop test centre (Khaleej
Times) The Dutch team that won this year's edition of the competition held by
entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX to develop superfast hyperloop transport
technology is setting up a full-scale testing centre for the technology.
A hyperloop is a shuttle that travels on magnetic
rails, somewhat like a train, but which runs in a tube with little or no air.
In theory, hyperloops could allow travel faster than the speed of sound. "People
were dreaming already of transporting humans and cargo (in hyperloops) from the
1860s, so the concept is not that new," said Tim Houter, co-founder of
Hardt Global Mobility, the company set up to commercialise the Dutch team's
technology.
Hardt grew out of the competition team from the
Technical University of Delft (TU Delft), which beat teams from MIT and the Technical
University of Munich to win the all-around design and construction award in
January.
With the help of several investors, among them TU
Delft, the Dutch national railway NS, and construction company BAM, Hardt has
built a 30 metre tube and is preparing to fit it with rails and the shuttle it
has designed. Hardt has $675,000 in funding for the initial rounds of testing,
with plans to raise more to build a high-speed test line by 2019. Houter's
ambition is to break ground on a commercial hyperloop between Amsterdam and
Paris by 2021.
3 Diarrhoea deaths down by a third (BBC) The number
of children dying worldwide of diarrhoea fell by a third between 2005 and 2015,
researchers have found. The Lancet study says better access to clean water and
sanitation is key, with fewer weak and malnourished children becoming infected.
New vaccines have also had a positive impact.
However, diarrhoea is still the fourth-biggest
killer of children globally, with almost 500,000 a year dying before their
fifth birthday. This figure could well be a significant under-estimate because
of the lack of data in sub-Saharan Africa, where most cases occur.
Diarrhoea is also indirectly responsible for large
numbers of deaths, through exacerbating the effects of other diseases, such as
pneumonia and measles. The US researchers, who analysed data from the new
Global Burden of Disease study, found well over a third (42%) of deaths happen
in Nigeria and India.
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