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The UN’s climate change body releases its first annual report

 http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/news/the-uns-climate-change-body-releases-its-first-annual-report,  1 May 18 The UN’s official climate secretariat has launched its first annual report into its work in combatting climate change.

The body is instrumental in delivering the commitments of the Paris Agreement and Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions and prevent the rise in global temperatures.

“Climate Change is the single biggest threat to life, security and prosperity on Earth,” said executive secretary Patricia Espinosa.

“This annual report shows how UN Climate Change is doing everything it can to support, encourage and build on the global response to climate change,” she added.

The report covers what UN Climate Change sees as its key achievements over the past year including its official conference, COP23, in Bonn. The 30,000 people who attended helped ensure action on climate change was maintained, including the importance of commitments before 2020.

The conference also saw financial commitments of almost $1 billion made by member states on partners. Norway led a coalition pledging $400 million to support sustainable agriculture and forest management. Germany, the UK, and others also pledged $153 million to fight deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

The launch of the Talanoa Dialogues have been a central part of UN Climate Change’s work in 2017. This Fiji-led idea is designed to be a ‘global conversation’ to involve as many people in climate action as possible. The Dialogues aim to inform and inspire member states as they work on their climate commitments. UN Climate Change’s first-ever Gender Action Plan was also launched to increase the participation of women in the response to climate change.

The report also looks to the challenges throughout 2018, including the official adoption of the Paris Agreement’s work programme and procedures in December.

“Throughout 2018 and beyond, let us do all in our power, together, to accelerate action,” said Ms. Espinosa. “Only by doing so can we succeed in protecting our planet from climate change and securing a low-carbon, sustainable future.”

In addition, the report also details the agency’s total funding, with its running costs now reaching $98 million, covering its rolling programmes and activities. $29 million is set aside as part its core budget. Staff costs for its 400 employees are now at $1.5 million.

May 2, 2018 Posted by | 2 WORLD, climate change | Leave a comment

UK: Many cops guarding nuclear weapons found to be unfit

Daily Record 30th April 2018 , Dozens of elite gun cops tasked with protecting Britain’s nuclear weapons
at Faslane and other military sites are too unfit to carry firearms, it
emerged yesterday. A shocking report into the Ministry of Defence Police
reveals “concern” at the growing number who have been sidelined. The
crisis has emerged after tougher fitness tests equal to those taken by
other armed officers were introduced. Some MoD police – whose jobs include
guarding the nuclear submarine fleet at Faslane, SAS headquarters in
Hereford and GCHQ’s Cheltenham base – have failed the new tests. Others
have simply refused to take part, the Mail on Sunday reported.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/gun-cops-faslane-too-unfit-12451711

May 2, 2018 Posted by | employment, UK | Leave a comment

Rare eye cancer cases reported (not a mention of proximity to nuclear station)

Doctors are stumped after at least 36 people from SAME Alabama college are diagnosed with rare eye cancer that affects only six in every million

  • Researchers are investigating the cause of ocular melanoma in two communities
  • Eighteen people in Huntersville, North Carolina have been diagnosed 
  • A troubling and rising number of people affiliated with Auburn University in Alabama have been diagnosed as well   
  • The rare disease affects only six out of every one million people  
  • One woman started an Auburn ocular melanoma Facebook page where 36 people reached out saying they too have been diagnosed 
  • The university has launched its own investigation

By Marlene Lenthang For Dailymail.com 1 May 2018

A rare eye cancer has struck 18 people in North Carolina and reportedly 36 more in Alabama, leaving doctors stumped as they search for a cause.

Only six out of every one million people are diagnosed with ocular melanoma each year.

Four friends with the rare cancer who attended Auburn University together believe an investigation into their alma mater may find the cause.

In January, 18 patients within a 15-mile radius were diagnosed with the cancer in Huntersville, North Carolina.

The four friends with ocular melanoma, have learned of 36 other Auburn University grads or workers who have the cancer as well, according to CBS………

Although the situation in Auburn has not been dubbed a cluster, the group of patients with the cancer in Huntersville has been defined as a cancer cluster.

In Huntersville not only have 18 people have been affected, but four have died within a 15-mile radius due to the illness.

Oddly the cancer, although more typically found in men in their 60s, has affected majority women in their 30s or younger in the community.

Investigators studying the Huntersville cluster with accounts dating back to 2014, published a report earlier this month that said no cause of the cluster has been found.

The study investigated air, water and land related issues but it yielded no findings towards a cause.

‘It’s just hard to believe that there’s not a common thread here. I just keep thinking they need to do more,’ Mecklenburg County Commissioner Pat Cotham said to WCNC. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5675573/Rare-eye-cancer-strikes-communities-North-Carolina-Alabama.html#ixzz5EDN7ZUDA

May 2, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Hitachi seeks talks to slash shareholding in UK nuclear business, seeks direct government funding

Nikkei Asian Review 29th April 2018 , Chairman to ask British premier May to take direct stake in Horizon power unit.
Hitachi will ask the U.K. government to take a direct stake in the company
that is to build and operate a nuclear power plant in Wales which is now
100% owned by the Japanese industrial company.

Hitachi expects the U.K. government will invite private British companies to participate and hopes
to reduce its own stake to less than 50%. Hitachi has recently concluded
that the risk of proceeding with the Anglesey project, at an estimated cost
of more than 3 trillion yen ($27.5 billion), is too great to manage on its
own as a private company.

It plans to withdraw from the project if restructuring negotiations fall through. Such a move would have significant
repercussions for nuclear power policy for both Britain and Japan. In
response to Hitachi’s concerns, the British government earlier this month
proposed that U.K. interests and Japanese public and private interests join
with Hitachi to move Anglesey forward. The three sets of shareholders would
each put 300 billion yen into the project, giving each a one-third stake.
According to sources, the company and the Japanese government see it as too
risky for Japanese interests to retain a majority shareholding and hope
that British interests will acquire a controlling stake.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Companies/Hitachi-seeks-talks-to-slash-shareholding-in-UK-nuclear-business

May 2, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

Legal discussions over failed nuclear plants – will result in tougher regulations

Tougher utility regulations advance, as attorneys argue over failed S.C. nuclear project https://www.postandcourier.com/business/tougher-utility-regulations-advance-as-attorneys-argue-over-failed-s/article_872a5b7c-4d5d-11e8-8743-b78c8b42b82a.html, By Andrew Brown abrown@postandcourier.com

    May 1, 2018

COLUMBIA — Utility companies may soon face tougher resistance in South Carolina as the state’s regulators prepare to decide who should pay for two abandoned nuclear reactors at V.C. Summer station.

Attorneys are also battling over what documents from that project should be shared with the public.

A state Senate panel advanced legislation Tuesday that creates a new consumer advocate to represent utility customers. It also gives the Office of Regulatory Staff — the state’s existing utility watchdog, the ability to subpoena documents from utilities and their contractors.

  • They also moved a bill that will stop other electric utilities from using the Base Load Review Act. That’s the 2007 law that enabled SCANA Corp. to charge customers for the unfinished nuclear reactors in Fairfield County while the power plants were being built.

    The two pieces of legislation were passed by the state House earlier this year but the bills got bogged down for months in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    They now head to the Senate floor with less than six days left in the legislative session.

    Lawmakers pushing the legislation hope the changes will make it easier for the seven regulators on the Public Service Commission to stop SCANA from charging customers for the $9 billion nuclear project in the coming decades.

    SCANA’s electric customers currently pay $37 million per month for the reactors and the utility wants to continue to charge those ratepayers for the project for the next 20 to 60 years.

    The bills will help the public service commissioners to clarify whether SCANA’s decisions during the decade-long nuclear project were justified.

    The legislation could also make it easier for the Office of Regulatory Staff and the environmental groups that are challenging SCANA to prove the utility mislead regulators or failed to disclose vital information about the nuclear project.

    By increasing the Office of Regulatory Staff’s ability to subpoena documents, lawmakers hope the agency will obtain information from SCANA, Westinghouse Electric, the primary contractor at V.C. Summer, and Bechtel Corp., an engineering and construction firm that produced a secretive audit of the construction project in 2015.

    “We’ve got this major landmark case that we are heading into this fall,” Nanette Edwards, the acting director for the Office of Regulatory Staff, said in explaining why the changes were needed.   Reach Andrew Brown at 843-708-1830 or follow him on Twitter @andy_ed_brown.

May 2, 2018 Posted by | Legal, USA | Leave a comment

Academy apologizes for Taoist blessings at nuclear project

 http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1100320.shtml

 2018/5/1  The Chinese Academy of Sciences apologized on Monday for a lamb-butchering Taoist ritual held at the founding ceremony for a nuclear project in Northwest China’s Gansu Province and vowed to enhance political and ideological education to avoid similar incidents.

The Beijing-based academy apologized for not restraining the behavior of its partner, claiming the ritual was “against the spirit of science” in a statement released on its official Sina Weibo account on Monday.

He Zhanjun and Cao Yuxiang, employees at the academy’s Shanghai institute of applied physics, were suspended on Monday after the institute found they were present at the ritual but did nothing to stop it.

The Thorium Molten Salt Reactor Nuclear Energy System is a project developed by the academy and the Gansu government at a total cost of 22 billion yuan ($3.48 billion).

Seven officials from Minqin county, Gansu Province are also being investigated by a local discipline watchdog after pictures of the ritual went viral.

The photos showed a Taoist monk holding religious items and reciting incantations as a lamb was slaughtered and yellow papers with Taoist spells were burned in front of him.

Internet users denounced and defended the ostensibly superstitious ceremony at the launch of some of China’s most advanced technology.

The heated debate, whether for or against, was valuable in attracting public attention to projects involving large amounts of public money, noted Zhao Chu, a Shanghai-based columnist and military affairs specialist.

“At a time when knowledge and sciences are advocated, we should also reserve some respect for historical and cultural heritage as well as local and religious customs,” Zhao wrote in an article posted on news site qq.com on Tuesday.

May 2, 2018 Posted by | general | Leave a comment

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