Over 100 world leaders gathered this week in Scotland for the United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, to debate nature protection and strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change.
According to CNN, more than 100 countries agreed on the summit’s first day to halt deforestation by 2030. The countries that comprise more than 85 percent of the world’s forests include Canada, Russia, Indonesia, Colombia, and Congo. India, in particular, has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2070.
US President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that his government would adopt new measures to curb methane emissions from oil and gas operations.
“This isn’t just something we have to do to protect the environment and future,” Biden stated during the meeting. “It’s an enormous opportunity for all of us, all of our nations, to create jobs and make many climate goals a core part of recovery as well.”
John Kerry, who is now President Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate, told NBC News that 100 other countries will join the United States and European Union in reducing methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and the world’s second-richest person spoke at the conference on Tuesday and pledged $2 billion to nature protection and food system transformation.
“Amazon aims to power all its operations by renewable energies by 2025,” Bezos told the New York Times.
Bezos, who also owns the Blue Origin aerospace company, recently traveled to the edge of space on one of his ships. He made reference to the flight during his summit speech.
“I was told that seeing the Earth from space changes the lens through which you view the world,” Bezos stated. “But I was not prepared for just how much that was true.”
“In too many parts of the world, nature is already flipping from carbon sink to a carbon source,” he continued.
Bezos pledged $10 billion to combat climate change in early 2020 through his Bezos Earth Fund, which he says would provide funding to academics and groups striving to avert the effects of rising temperatures.
Elon Musk, one of the world’s billionaires, has stated that he will sell Tesla stock and give the money to the United Nations if it can demonstrate that a small portion of his riches might end the world’s hunger crisis.
Musk was responding to statements made last week by David Beasley, Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, who said that a $6 billion donation from billionaires like Musk and Bezos might help 42 million people who are “literally going to die if we don’t reach them.”
Bloomberg Billionaires Index reported that Musk is currently the world’s wealthiest man and the first individual to be worth more than $300 billion. Tesla CEO Elon Musk presently has a net worth of $311 billion, so a $6 billion donation would represent 2% of his fortune, and would still leave him ahead of Jeff Bezos, the second richest man, by at least $100 billion.
On the other hand, Musk is disputing the World Food Programme’s claim that the amount will end the present food problem, saying on Twitter that if the World Food Programme can demonstrate it, he will “sell Tesla stock right now and do it.” He also sought transparency regarding how the funds would be spent.
Beasley reacted to Musk’s tweet with the following: “I can assure you that we have the systems in place for transparency and open source accounting. Your team can review and work with us to be totally confident of such.”
Additionally, he highlighted that the United Nations World Food Programme has never stated that $6 billion will end world hunger. “This is a one-time donation to save 42 million lives during this unprecedented hunger crisis,” he tweeted.
Beasley of the World Food Programme has been reiterating his appeal to billionaires, urging them to take on the challenge of eradicating world hunger.
“It’s not complicated. I’m not asking them to do this every day, every week, every year,” Beasley stated during his CNN appearance.
“The top 400 billionaires in the United States, the net-worth increase was $1.8 trillion in the past year,” he stated. “All I’m asking for is .36% of your net-worth increase. I’m for people making money, but God knows I’m all for you helping people who are in great need right now. The world is in trouble.”
According to Variety, Dwayne Johnson’s production firm Seven Bucks Productions will never longer utilize real guns on any of its projects in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the film set.
“First of all, I was heartbroken. We lost a life. My heart goes out to her family and everybody on set. I’ve known Alec, too, for a very long time,” Johnson told the publication during the opening of “Red Notice,” his new Netflix spy thriller.
“I can’t speak for anyone else, but I can tell you, without an absence of clarity here, that any movie that we have moving forward with Seven Bucks Productions — any movie, any television show, or anything we do or produce — we won’t use real guns at all,” Johnson added.
The former WWE wrestler declared that in the future, all of his productions would use “rubber guns” and will “take care” of visual effects in post-production.
“We’re not going to worry about the dollars; we won’t worry about what it costs,” he stated.
Johnson later said that within hours of learning of Hutchins’s death, he and the Seven Bucks Productions crew discussed safety measures they would use on set.
“I think the most prudent thing and the smartest thing to do is just pause for a second and really re-examine how you’re going to move forward and how we’re going to work together,” he added.
“Any movie we do that Seven Bucks does with any studio; the rule is we’re not going to use real guns. That’s it.”
Johnson’s Seven Bucks Productions, which he co-founded with his ex-wife and longtime business partner Dany Garcia, has produced several of the actor’s high-profile projects, including 2017’s Baywatch, 2018’s Rampage, and Hobbs and Shaw, a Fast and Furious spin-off.
Johnson is one of the first A-List Hollywood producers to speak out about the safety measures he and his colleagues are implementing after the fatal shooting on the set of “Rust.”
Deadline reported earlier this week that Matthew Hutchins, Halyna Hutchins’ husband, retained the Los Angeles-based law firm Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi, specializing in personal injury and wrongful death cases.
Scientists are concerned that a highly contagious new COVID-19 strain devastating Peru may be immune to vaccinations. The Lambda mutation, or C.37, appears to have originated in Peru last August and is now being blamed for the country having the world’s highest pandemic death rate.
The strain has since spread to some 30 nations, especially Latin America – but also the United Kingdom, which, depending on government estimates, has documented at least eight instances.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are no known cases of Lambda strain in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, the Lambda variant has accounted for 81 percent of new infections tested for variations in Peru since April.
The Johns Hopkins University said that the South American country currently has by far the highest death rate in the world.
Almost 10 percent of those reported as infected die – almost double the death rate for the next country, Hungary, with approximately 600 people per 100,000 population. The figures indicate. The US is number 21, killing less than 185 per 100,000.
The World Health Organization (WHO) last month declared Lambda a variety of interests, stating it was “associated with substantive rates of community transmission in multiple countries.”
“Lambda carries a number of mutations” that may have led to “potential increased transmissibility or possible increased resistance to neutralizing antibodies,” the WHO said.
In a recent study, released in a preprint last week, scientists in Chile, where Lambda is accused of over one-third of illnesses in China, have also warned that vaccines appear to avoid better than other strains.
“Our data show for the first time that mutations present in the spike protein of the Lambda variant confer escape to neutralizing antibodies and increased infectivity,” the University of Chile researchers in Santiago wrote.
That could explain why it has been able to take hold despite Chile “undergoing a massive vaccination program,” the study warned.
However, the WHO has stated that “further research is necessary to establish the sustained efficacy of vaccines” against the new strain.