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European Union leaders on Wednesday introduced the bloc’s most comprehensive plans yet to combat climate change, with a new goal of reducing carbon emissions to 55% below 1990 levels by 2030.Unveiled by the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, the legislation would make the bloc’s goal of reaching climate neutrality by 2050 legally binding and completely overhaul its energy system.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said during a press conference that the “Fit for 55” plan would act as a road map of concrete actions necessary to achieve the bloc’s climate goals.“Our package aims to combine the reduction of emissions with measures to preserve nature, and to put jobs and social balance at the heart of this transformation,” von der Leyen said.The sweeping proposal would involve every sector of the EU’s economy in its Emissions Trading System, which incentivizes companies to lower their emissions by taxing the carbon they produce.New taxes on previously exempt sectors are proposed for aviation and shipping fuels. The plan also calls for increasing existing carbon taxes to the transportation, manufacturing and power sectors.FILE – Cars sit at a standstill during morning rush hour on a main artery in the European Quarter of Brussels, Dec. 12, 2019. The European Union on July 14, 2021, unveiled new legislation to help meet its pledge to cut climate-changing emissions.Border taxOne of the package’s most noteworthy aspects is a first-of-its-kind tax on the carbon produced by foreign imports, which in turn likely would raise prices for consumers.This border tax — known officially as the carbon border adjustment mechanism — would ensure the EU is reducing emissions across the board, and it would protect domestic companies against price competition from foreign companies without the same environmental restrictions.In April, environmental leaders from China, India, South Africa and Brazil spoke out against such a tax, asserting that a carbon border adjustment would be discriminatory against developing countries that lack the resources to focus on cutting emissions.The commission also is planning to completely phase out the sale of combustion-engine cars by 2035, effectively bringing new car emissions to zero.Other proposals include shifting millions of buildings in the EU toward renewable energy by 2030 via renovation and implementation of a carbon tax on road transport.“Emission of CO2 must have a price, and we know that carbon pricing works,” von der Leyen said. “Our existing emission trading system has already helped significantly to reduce emissions in industry and in power generation.”European Commissioner for the European Green Deal Frans Timmermans speaks during a media conference at EU headquarters in Brussels, July 14, 2021.Fairness, accessibilityThe commission emphasized a focus on making the transition to renewable energy fair and accessible to everyone, particularly low-income individuals and member states whose economies are more reliant on polluting industries.Environmental taxes that target the individual have caused controversy in the past, as seen with the massive yellow vest movement in opposition to the French government’s raising fuel taxes.Since energy prices are expected to rise, the commission proposed creating a $85.2 billion fund that citizens of member states could access to help mitigate the costs of switching to energy-efficient housing and transportation.The commission’s plan comes six years after the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement signaled a worldwide commitment to mitigating the impact of climate change and keeping global temperatures from increasing significantly.Additionally, since the EU produces only 8% of the world’s carbon emissions, the plan is intended to push other world powers to follow suit and produce more concrete plans for reaching climate neutrality.In coming years, the commission’s plan will be the subject of scrutiny and negotiation as the leaders from the 27 member states convene in the European Parliament and Council to implement the laws across the EU.
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More than 93,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. last year, a record experts say was partly triggered by the isolation that many experienced during coronavirus-related lockdowns.
 
The government reported Wednesday that the 2020 total easily surpassed the previous record of about 72,000 deaths in 2019.
 
“This is a staggering loss of human life,” Brandon Marshall, a Brown University public health researcher who tracks overdose trends, told the Associated Press. He said the United States was already faced with an overdose epidemic but that the pandemic “has greatly exacerbated the crisis.”
 
In addition to isolation, many sources of help for addicts were not available during lockdowns.
 
“During the pandemic, a lot of [drug] programs weren’t able to operate. Street-level outreach was very difficult. People were very isolated,” said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
 
Health experts say that while prescription painkillers once played a key role in U.S. drug overdose deaths, heroin and then in recent years fentanyl — a dangerously powerful opioid — proved exceptionally lethal.
 
Fentanyl was developed to legitimately treat intense medical pain, but now is sold illicitly and mixed with other drugs.
 
The government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said its studies show fentanyl was involved in more than 60% of overdose deaths last year.This August 2017 shows Jordan McGlashen, left, and his siblings, Brandon, Collin, and Kaitlin, in Battle Creek, Michigan. Jordan died of a drug overdose in his Ypsilanti, Michigan, apartment in 2020. (Courtesy Collin McGlashen via AP) One of the 93,000 was Jordan McGlashen of Ypsilanti, Michigan, who died of a heroin and fentanyl overdose May 6. He would have turned 39 six days later.
 
“It was really difficult for me to think about the way in which Jordan died. He was alone, and suffering emotionally and felt like he had to use again,” said his younger brother, Collin McGlashen.
 
Fentanyl is increasingly being found mixed with other drugs.
 
“What’s really driving the surge in overdoses is this increasingly poisoned drug supply,” said Shannon Monnat, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University who researches geographic patterns in overdoses. “Nearly all of this increase is fentanyl contamination in some way. Heroin is contaminated. Cocaine is contaminated. Methamphetamine is contaminated.”
 
The scope is staggering. The CDC is reporting that drug overdoses in 2020 increased in every state but New Hampshire and South Dakota.
 
States with the biggest increases in overdose deaths were Vermont, up 57.6%; followed by Kentucky, up 54%; South Carolina, up 52%; West Virginia, up nearly 50%; and California, up 46%.
 
Sharfstein of Johns Hopkins says the U.S. is likely now seeing more overdose deaths than deaths from COVID-19.
 
“This is a different kind of crisis, and it’s not going to go away as quickly,” he said.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
 
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Residents in Sydney, Australia will remain under lockdown for another two weeks as officials continue to struggle to contain a growing outbreak of the delta variant of COVID-19.The lockdown was first imposed on June 26 after a Sydney airport limousine driver who had been transporting international air crews tested positive for the variant. More than 800 people have since been infected, including 97 new infections reported Wednesday.  Two people have died in the current outbreak.”It always hurts to say this, but we need to extend the lockdown at least a further two weeks,” New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Wednesday in Sydney, the state capital.  The city’s five million residents are only allowed to leave home for work, exercise, essential shopping or medical reasons, while schools and many non-essential businesses are closed.People queue in line to wait for coronavirus testing at a testing site in Seoul, South Korea, July 8, 2021.South Korea dealing with new outbreak
South Korea is also dealing with a stubborn outbreak of new COVID-19 cases triggered by the delta variant.  Officials with the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 1,615 new coronavirus cases Wednesday, a new single-day record.  The majority of the new infections came from the capital, Seoul, and immediate surrounding neighborhoods.   The outbreak has prompted authorities to enforce strict restrictions and social distancing rules across much of South Korea, including a ban on private gatherings of more than two people after 6 p.m. in the Seoul area, with bars and restaurants closing by midnight.   South Korea now has 171,911 total COVID-19 cases, including 2,048 deaths. Only 30.6 percent of its 52 million citizens have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.   US Experiencing New COVID Surge Surge of new infections blamed on fast-moving delta variant, low rates of vaccinations and political oppositionThe CDC has banned most cruising from U.S. waters since March 2020. Companies have been working with the health agency to resume sailings under its conditional sail order — a set of guidelines for cruise companies wishing to resume sailing in the U.S., including test cruises and vaccine requirements.Norwegian Cruise Lines, which is set to resume cruises from Florida on August 15, said in the complaint that it wants to resume operations “in a way that will be safe, sound, and consistent with governing law,” according to court documents obtained by CNN.
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New Zealand students have developed sustainable materials made from cabbage tree leaves and flax that could soon be used to make high-performance skis, kayaks and skateboards. Their plan is to use them to replace traditional fiberglass and carbon fiber. Skateboards need to be tough. Two students at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury, Ben Scales and William Murrell, believe they can make them even more durable by using fiber from plants. After experimenting in their garage workshops, they created new, natural composite materials.  Scales, who is 21 and studies product design, says their first version is looking good. “The prototype is a harakeke bio-composite skateboard. So, it is 25 percent harakeke fiber and 75 percent recycled polylactic acid, which is a plastic derived from corn starch. It is commonly used in 3D printing, and we have found it to be (a) quite well-suited material to a skateboard because it absorbs the bumps and shocks a lot more than, say, a carbon-fiber skateboard or a conventional wood skateboard,” Scales said.    The fiber is extracted from the Harakeke plant, which is a native New Zealand flax, and mixed with various resins. Leaves from the cabbage tree, which is similar to a palm tree, are also a key ingredient.   The plan is to use these sustainable materials to make skis, snowboards and kayaks, which are currently manufactured from fiberglass and carbon fiber. The university students have attracted interest from potential business partners in other countries. “They range in companies in Europe that make boats to skis, and then a few startups overseas who are looking to sort of shape the personal transport industry with e-bikes and things like that, and they are looking to use sustainable materials that just are not offered in industries like that. So, they are wanting to use our material once we have gotten it ready, which will hopefully be soon,” Scales said. If they’re successful, the students could reinvigorate New Zealand’s flax fiber industry, and revive practices used by indigenous Māori before European colonization. 
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The United States should accommodate millions of refugees who will be forced to flee disasters and other effects of a changing climate, according to a task force report released Wednesday.  The In this April 15, 2021, file photo, President Joe Biden speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington. No nation offers asylum or other protections to people displaced because of climate change. Biden’s admin is studying the idea.In an executive order in February, U.S. President Joe Biden instructed National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to examine how to identify and resettle people who will be displaced by climate change.    “We are actively working on a report on climate change and its impact on migration, including forced migration, internal displacement and planned relocation, for the president and expect a final version, or summary thereof, will be made public by the fall,” a senior administration official told VOA.  Opposition to resettlement proposal There is certain to be pushback from conservative lawmakers and groups opposing liberal immigration reform.   America’s immigration system “is already strained to the breaking point” with more than 1.3 million pending asylum cases, and “inviting untold millions more to seek refugee status, or arrive here and claim asylum, based on assertions of harm as a result of climate change would cause the system to collapse entirely,” predicted Ira Mehlman, media director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform.  Climate change “cannot be addressed by advocacy group-driven attempts to engage in mass resettlement of people in the United States,” added Mehlman, who contends the task force’s proposal “ironically would further hinder our ability to address the root causes of climate change. Large-scale, migration-driven population growth would make it nearly impossible for the United States to meet goals set for reductions in CO2 and other harmful emissions.”  The founder of another organization seeking stricter limitations on immigration to the United States also expresses concern.  “Of all forms of migration, refugee resettlement has tended to have the most direct negative effect on the ability of lower-skilled Americans — disproportionately minorities — to obtain jobs and on depressing the wages of those who retain their jobs,” said Roy Beck, founder of anti-immigration group NumbersUSA.  Priority should be given to those from adjacent countries or the same region, but the task force suggests America “would be a destination for the whole world, making the lack of numerical caps in the proposal especially problematic,” added Beck.  The NumbersUSA leader also is concerned about the ramifications of Temporary Protection Status for those whose displacement is caused by disasters exacerbated by the effects of climate, as the task force proposes. “This would continue the corruption of the program’s purpose, which already is threatened with losing the support of the American people for the very real and manageable need for the U.S. to provide respite for as many calamities as possible, but only if the respite is truly temporary,” said Beck.  Biden previously announced the United States intends to double, by 2024, its annual public climate finance for developing countries and triple public finance for climate adaptation, compared to what the country was providing during the second half of former President Barack Obama’s administration (who was in office from 2009 to early 2017).   The 2022 fiscal year request by Biden of $2.5 billion for international climate programs “is very significant but still less than the amounts for which climate experts had advocated,” according to the task force, which wants the U.S. to increase the foreign aid budget to reduce the risks of climate-related disasters and for international programs dealing with climate adaptation. According to the report, there is globally a $2.5 trillion gap in resilience infrastructure.  Advocates such as Ober at Refugees International, are optimistic that the Biden administration will help close that gap, saying, “it has already shown a good faith effort to really dig into these issues, and in fact, is the first administration of its kind to really set a high bar for addressing climate change and migration issues.”  
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