Adam Boulton: The glimmers of hope and reasons to be cheerful as 2022 ends

Published

2 years ago

December 25, 2022

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2022 has been a tough year, in which the UK has often been hit harder than its peer countries in the G7 – the club of the world’s wealthiest democracies.

Russia’s bloody attack on Ukraine led to dramatic spikes in energy costs.

A global cost of living crisis has been driven by soaring inflation and interest rates.

In the UK, hard-pressed workers across the public sector are striking.

Unprecedented political instability in the governing Conservative Party means there have been three different prime ministers in the same year.

Meanwhile, billions of us are grappling with digital technology and connectivity. Some fear social media is rendering traditional representative democracy impossible while handing power to autocrats and unaccountable corporations. Online communication has certainly made us angrier and less tolerant of others.

The world’s population passed eight billion people this year, further increasing the existential pressure humanity is placing on the planet. Extreme weather events attributed to global warming are more frequent than ever.

Globally, the COVID pandemic has claimed more than six million lives, and it is not over either, with a million more deaths predicted in China as the Communist Party reverses its zero-COVID policy.

Taken together, these problems paint a dark picture of life in 2022, yet as we try to cope with them there are glimmers of hope. As we head into the New Year, I want to lift the gloom and rustle up some reasons to be cheerful.

Hope and unity emerge from war in Ukraine

No one should minimise the horror of the war in Ukraine, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides and is still enduring the deliberate destruction by an aggressor of a modern European state. Russia’s superiority in size may still mean that Ukraine never gets back all its territory.

Still, the course of the war so far has confounded all President Vladimir Putin’s calculations and shattered the dreams of dictatorial regimes elsewhere. Russia did not conquer in a few days.

The Western democracies did not prove weak and venal. NATO is not “brain-dead”, as President Emmanuel Macron sneered a few years ago. It is stronger, with Finland and Sweden joining the military alliance.

Led by the US, UK and Poland, Western nations have given billions of dollars in military assistance while accommodating refugees. Just as importantly, the thirst of the Ukrainian people and their leaders for liberty, peace and democracy, stressed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his impassioned address to the joint session of the US Congress, reminded us all of the values which should unite us and which are worth fighting for.

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For all their faults, Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss gave Ukraine solid support, even though it cut across their key post-Brexit foreign policy of turning away from Europe. British governments from now on are likely to grasp the importance of good relations with the UK’s closest and largest trading bloc, based on practical co-operation rather than ideology.

A healthy democracy

There is no going back on leaving the EU. But the UK has the chance to enter a new phase without obsessing over the question of Europe, which has dogged the Tory party at least since the 1990s, bedevilling the nation in the process.

Conservative governments no longer have an excuse to be distracted from dealing directly with more important questions such as growth, productivity, and fairness.

If the ruling party does not adapt and address these issues, opinion polls and recent local and by-elections suggest that the electorate may be ready to make a change.

Whatever the outcome at the next election, this is the sign of healthy democracy. Something the increasingly restless people of Russia, China and Iran, for example, are not able to enjoy.

In elections in the West this year, the tide appeared to be turning against populist leaders with links to Russia.

Candidates most associated with Donald Trump, who called Putin a “genius”, fared badly in November’s midterm elections. The Democrats kept control of the Senate. In France, President Macron was re-elected in April, defeating a challenge from Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally.

Game-changing future technology

In an era of modern communications, the world should not and cannot de-globalise. The knock from the loss of Russian energy has led, however, to increased emphasis on the importance of producing our own green energy and trading with friendly and stable partners.

2022 will be a record year for commissioning renewable energy programmes, a trend which was already accelerating before the Ukraine invasion.

Other scientific breakthroughs this year point to game-changing future technologies. In the US, experimenters have for the first time achieved atomic fusion, producing more energy than was used to trigger it.

Chinese scientists claim to have found a way to produce hydrogen by electrolysing salt water. Applied on an industrial scale, this would dramatically increase the supply and cheapness of a potentially “green” fuel.

A test case in the Amazon

There were two important world meetings on the environment this year – COP27 in Egypt on climate change and COP15 in Canada on biodiversity.

Neither was dramatic, but both re-affirmed commitments already moving in the right direction. Crucially, at both summits, richer nations agreed to remove one of the biggest obstacles to moving faster.

They agreed, though so far more in principle than practice, to pay poorer nations for loss and damage caused by Western industrialisation and to protect vital ecosystems. Both are battles against time and the pace of degradation.

Brazil will be a test case. Deforestation in the Amazon increased catastrophically under encouragement from outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. Lula da Silva, who takes office in January, campaigned successfully on a commitment of zero deforestation in the rain forests, wetlands, and savannah. He has re-appointed a highly committed environment minister,

Marina Silva, and upped the budget to combat destruction.

We’re living longer and healthier

68.7% of the world population have now had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine. A total of thirteen billion doses have been dispensed. The capacity of the disease to kill is receding.

An anti-malaria vaccine also became a live possibility this year. Global life expectancy went up to 73 years in 2022, albeit by 0.24%. A woman born in Britain this year can expect to live to 83 – that’s 21 years progress on the average female life span in 1926, the year Queen Elizabeth II was born.

Life expectancy increases are plateauing in the UK and US. The most dramatic advances are in poorer countries. Today, 9.2% of the world population live in what is defined as extreme poverty, compared to 36% in 1990. That is still more than a billion people. In the same period, deaths of children five and under has fallen from 34,200 each day to 14,200.

Pioneers believe that mankind is on the brink of a much greater transformation in both preventative and therapeutic medicine – thanks to the use of AI technology in mapping the human genome and proteins, and the possibilities of so-called CRISPR gene editing.

A better tech universe

We are not in control of the ways online technology is changing almost every aspect of our lives. Authoritarian regimes use it to control information and their own citizens. In free societies, trolls and conspiracy theorists send untruths around the world, aided by bots from hostile nations.

Ordinary people go on social media to vilify others and to “cancel” them. The furore on both sides over Jeremy Clarkson’s casually vicious comments on Meghan Markle are just the latest example.

Meanwhile, tech companies and entrepreneurs have become absurdly wealthy.

In 2022, we began to respond to this stupidity haltingly. The US government legislated against passing strategically vital tech to China. The UK government considered essential issues in the Online Safety Bill. The EU moved against US tech cartels.

FTX collapse into fraud burst the cryptocurrency bubble. Elon Musk’s humiliating mismanagement of Twitter showed the world that tech geniuses do not have all the answers. A better, less uneven, tech universe should emerge from all this, not least because the rising generations are growing up in it.

Beyond the metaverse, digging deep into the worlds of politics, health, and the environment unearths some reasons to be cheerful as this year ends.

All the same in 2023, as teachers write at the bottom of report cards, MUST DO BETTER.

World

Children among 25 people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza – as 41 killed in attack on northern Lebanon

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2 hours ago

November 1, 2024

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Children among 25 people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza - as 41 killed in attack on northern Lebanon

An 18-month-old boy and his 10-year-old sister are among 25 people who were killed in a series of Israeli strikes on central parts of Gaza, hospital officials have said.

Sixteen people were initially reported to have been killed in two strikes on the central Nuseirat refugee camp on Thursday, but officials from the Al Aqsa hospital said bodies continued to be brought in.

The hospital said they had received 21 bodies from the strikes, including some transferred from the Awda hospital, where they had been taken the day before.

Strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and on a house in Deir al Balah on Friday killed four more, hospital officials said, bringing the overall toll to 25.

Five children and seven women are among those who have been confirmed dead.

The mother of the 18-month-old boy is missing and his father was killed in an Israeli strike four months ago, the family has said.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA earlier reported that 57 people had died in the Israeli strikes.

The Israeli military did not comment on the specific strikes but said its troops had identified and eliminated “several armed terrorists” in central Gaza.

It also said its forces had eliminated “dozens of terrorists” in raids in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area – home to one of the territory’s refugee camps.

It comes as the Israeli military said on Friday it killed senior Hamas official Izz al Din Kassab, describing him as one of the last high-ranking members, in an airstrike in Khan Younis.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have over the past few weeks resumed intense operations in the north of Gaza, claiming they are seeking to stop Hamas, the militant group ruling Gaza, from regrouping.

Meanwhile, top UN officials said in a statement on Friday that the situation in northern Gaza is “apocalyptic” and the entire Palestinian population in the area is at “imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence”.

The overall number of people killed in Gaza in the 13-month war is more than 43,000, officials from the Hamas-run health ministry in the territory, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, reported this week.

It comes as at least 41 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Lebanon’s Baalbek region on Friday, the regional governor said.

The deaths were confirmed hours after Lebanon’s health ministry said 30 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the country in the past 24 hours.

It is not clear if any of those killed in the Baalbek region were included in that figure.

In recent days, Israel has intensified its airstrikes on the northeast city of Baalbek and nearby villages, as well as different parts of southern Lebanon, prompting roughly 60,000 people to flee their homes, according to Hussein Haj Hassan, a Lebanese official representing the region.

Israel’s military said in a statement that attacks “in the area of Beirut” had targeted Hezbollah weapons manufacturing sites, command centres and other infrastructure.

Israeli planes also pounded Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight, destroying dozens of buildings in several neighbourhoods, according to the Lebanese state news agency.

More than 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 wounded since fighting between Israel and Hezbollah escalated after Hamas’s 7 October attack last year, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said.

Meanwhile, in northern Israel, seven people, including three Israelis and four Thai nationals, were killed by projectiles fired from Lebanon on Thursday, Israeli medics said.

World

North Korea vows to back Russia until ‘victory’ over Ukraine – as thousands of its troops ‘set to enter combat’

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2 hours ago

November 1, 2024

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North Korea vows to back Russia until 'victory' over Ukraine - as thousands of its troops 'set to enter combat'

North Korea says it will support Russia in its war with Ukraine “until the day of victory” – after the US warned thousands of Pyongyang’s troops are set to enter combat in the coming days.

North Korea’s foreign minister Choe Son Hui hailed Vladimir Putin’s “wise leadership” ahead of talks in Moscow on Friday, and insisted that Russia will “achieve a great victory”.

“We also assure that until the day of victory we will firmly stand alongside our Russian comrades,” she added.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken has said thousands of North Korean troops are stationed near Ukraine’s border and are set to enter combat in the coming days.

Mr Blinken said 10,000 soldiers have been deployed to Russia, with up to 8,000 in the Kursk border region, and indicated they would be used on the frontline.

He added that the troops have been trained by Russian forces in artillery, drones and “basic infantry operations, including trench clearing”.

In an interview with South Korean TV channel KBS, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the West’s response to the deployment as “nothing, it’s zero”.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Friday that he had “nothing to add to what has already been said” on the US claims, and thanked Ms Choe for North Korea’s support.

The deployment of troops to Russia comes after Mr Putin met Kim Jong Un in June, when the Russian president travelled to North Korea for the first time in 24 years.

A mutual defence pact was agreed during their summit, meaning the countries will help each other if they are attacked.

Speaking in Moscow, Ms Choe accused the US and South Korea of plotting a nuclear strike against her country.

She provided no evidence to back her claim, but spoke of regular consultations between Washington and Seoul, at which she alleged such plotting took place.

Ms Choe also told Mr Lavrov that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could turn “explosive” at any moment.

On Thursday, North Korea tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile, which it claimed was “the world’s most powerful strategic deterrent”.

On Friday, Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 31 Russian drones and one missile during an overnight strike across the country.

It said 48 drones were launched by Moscow, along with three cruise missiles. Out of the drones launched, another 14 were “locationally lost”.

World

Why flooding in Spain has been so deadly – and why it could happen again

Published

2 hours ago

November 1, 2024

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Why flooding in Spain has been so deadly – and why it could happen again

More than 200 people have died in Spain after nearly a year’s worth of rain fell in a matter of hours.

On Friday, there were at least 205 confirmed deaths in Valencia, two in Castilla La Mancha, and one in Andalusia.

Local authorities issued warnings late on Tuesday, but many say this gave them next-to-no time to prepare for the conditions that had killed dozens by Wednesday.

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Here we look at what caused the flooding – and why they could happen again.

How quickly did the floods hit?

Heavy rain had already begun in parts of southern Spain on Monday.

In contrast to areas like Malaga, where residents told Sky News it had been “chucking it down for two days”, the rain did not start in the worst-hit region of Valencia until around 7pm on Tuesday.

At 8pm, people in Valencia received smartphone alerts warning them not to leave their homes.

But by then, many were already trapped in dangerous conditions, particularly in the south of the city where a major road had flooded, leaving drivers stuck in their cars.

By Wednesday morning, more than 50 people had been found dead.

The Chiva area of Valencia had been hit by 491 litres per square metre of rain in eight hours. Only around 65 l/m2 usually falls in the whole of October.

Storms spread west on Wednesday night and into Thursday, bringing deadly conditions to Andalusia and Castilla La Mancha as well.

What caused them?

Heavy rain is not uncommon across eastern Spain at this time of year.

It’s caused by a weather phenomenon called DANA – ‘depresion aislada en niveles altos’ in Spanish – which translates as ‘isolated low-pressure system at high levels’.

DANA occurs when:

1) Cold air from the north moves south;

2) Warm air then blows over the Mediterranean, rising quickly and forming heavy clouds;

3) The low pressure from the north gets blocked by the high pressure above the water, causing it to slow down or stop completely.

This creates storm-like conditions that cannot move anywhere else – so the rain falls over the same area for a sustained period of time.

What role did climate change play?

General flash floods and those caused by DANA specifically have struck Spain long before humans started warming the climate.

But climate change is making heavy rain worse, and therefore more dangerous.

That’s because hotter air is able to hold more moisture. So when it rains, it unleashes more water.

The current 1.3C increase in global temperatures since pre-industrial times means the air can carry about 9% more moisture.

And higher sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean are a “key driver” of strong storms, said Dr Marilena Oltmanns, research scientist at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton.

The world is on track for 3.1C warming by the end of this century, which is expected to make rain heavier still, increasing the chances of flash flooding and giving areas little time to respond.

Imperial College London’s lead for its World Weather Attribution (WWA) group Dr Friederike Otto says there is “no doubt about it”.

“These explosive downpours were intensified by climate change,” she says.

Professor Mark Smith, an expert in water science and health at the University of Leeds, adds that hotter summers also dry out the soil in the ground, which means it absorbs less rain – and more of it flows into rivers and lakes – which flood quicker.

Will they keep happening?

A red weather warning is in place for the Huelva area of Andalusia until Friday afternoon.

Beyond the warning period, storms are set to continue across parts of Spain for several days.

In the longer term, Dr Marilena Oltmanns says: “Given the long-term warming trend, both in the sea surface temperatures in the Mediterranean region and the global air temperature, we expect the events like the currently observed one in Spain to become more frequent.”

Chiva and the surrounding worst-hit area also suffers from the unfortunate geography of being in a river catchment – where water feeds into the River Turia – and close to the mountains. And is not far from the sea.

That means water has little chance to absorb into the land and so builds up very quickly.

This makes it all the more imperative that forecasts are accurate, authorities prepare accordingly, and residents respond quickly.

Professor Hannah Cloke, professor of Hydrology at the University of Reading, describes people dying in their cars and being swept away in the street as “entirely avoidable”.

“This suggests the system for alerting people to the dangers of floods in Valencia has failed,” she says.

“People need to understand that extreme weather warnings for floods are very different from regular weather reports. We need to consider flood warnings totally differently, more like fire alarms or earthquake sirens, and less like the way we browse daily weather forecasts on our phones or on the TV.”

Gareth Redmond-King, international analyst at the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), says Spain’s tragedy should serve as a “wake-up call” to the UK.

“This is not about future events in a far-off place with a dramatically different climate from the UK. Spain is one of our nearest neighbours,” he warns.