The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment, was declared an emergency of international concern by the WHO earlier this month and cases are rising sharply

International News via Reuters:

The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in order to contain an Ebola outbreak, saying that ongoing fighting was driving mass displacement and spreading the disease in overcrowded camps.

The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment, was declared an emergency of international concern by the WHO earlier this month and cases are rising sharply.

“Eastern DRC now faces a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict, with the Ebola outbreak in Ituri province outpacing the response,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom ​Ghebreyesus, who is due to travel to the region this week.

“We cannot build community trust or isolate the sick while bombs are falling. We urge all warring parties to agree to an immediate ceasefire to contain this outbreak,” he said on X.

Over 900 suspected cases and over 200 suspected deaths have so far been reported in three provinces in eastern Congo including the North Kivu province, held by Rwanda-backed M23 rebels, and South Kivu province, controlled by rebel group the Alliance Fleuve Congo.

Aid group Save the Children said on Wednesday that a quarter of the confirmed deaths were children, calling for a scale-up in infection prevention measures.

Fighting has continued in eastern Congo despite mediation efforts led by the U.S. and others, and millions of people are displaced. The U.N. refugee agency said transit and reception sites in Uganda’s West Nile region which borders Congo are at more than double capacity, a document showed.

Aid groups are rushing staff and equipment to eastern Congo but attacks on medics due to community distrust have hampered efforts, they say. So far, donors have pledged around $500 million to help with the outbreak but not all has been disbursed, according to health officials.

SHORTAGES OF PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT

A doctor in Boutembo in the province of North Kivu in the DRC where there have been six deaths out of seven  cases of Ebola told Reuters they have only two body bags left, amid shortages of equipment. 

“If there are more deaths I don’t know how we will manage,” the doctor said on the condition of anonymity due to concerns it could impact their employment.

“We recently had to secure a body – we had no choice but to use our own money to buy a body bag,” the doctor added.

The doctor also reported critical shortages of soap, chlorine and personal protective gear including boots, body suits, masks and gloves, and said that foreign aid cuts to international and local NGOs were ​partly to blame. 

Reporting by Silvia Aloisi, Emma Farge, Olivia Le Poidevin and Ayen Deng Bior; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Mark Porter

The call highlights investor unease that the energy crisis triggered by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran could be used to justify rolling back climate commitments, as governments focus on securing supplies

International News via Reuters:

Financial institutions and investors have urged the European Union to maintain its opposition to new Arctic oil and gas drilling, as the bloc weighs revising its stance to prioritise energy security.

The call highlights investor unease that the energy crisis triggered by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran could be used to justify rolling back climate commitments, as governments focus on securing supplies.

Nordea Asset Management, part of Nordic lender Nordea, and 11 other financial institutions were among signatories urging the European Commission on Wednesday not to weaken its stance, warning it would undermine both climate goals and long-term energy security.

New Arctic fossil fuel developments would take more than a decade to come online, making them ineffective in addressing the current crisis, said the letter, organised by the Nordic Center for Sustainable Finance and Danish pension fund Sampension and also signed by civil society groups and scientists.    

“The Arctic is one of the planet’s most vulnerable ecosystems and home to unique wildlife …. Further oil and gas expansion would add pressure to these globally significant ecosystems, by increasing the risk of oil spills and leakages,” the letter said.

Oil spill simulations suggest more than 90% of spilled oil in certain fields of the Barents Sea would not be recoverable, it added.

The war in Iran has disrupted global energy markets and sent European gas prices surging.

Norway, Europe’s biggest gas supplier but not an EU member, has been pushing Brussels to drop the moratorium.

With many ageing fields, Norwegian production is set to decline in the 2030s unless companies such as Equinor make new discoveries outside mature areas.

Norway’s largest pension company, KLP, also signed the letter. 

The EU’s current policy supports a ban on further Arctic oil and gas development and rejects purchases of such hydrocarbons. However, no formal moratorium is in place.

A Commission spokesperson said the EU was reviewing its Arctic policy “in light of the new geopolitical and geoeconomic context” but no conclusions had been reached.

Jacob Ehlerth Jorgensen, head of ESG at Sampension, said the fund backed Norway’s role as an energy supplier but that Arctic drilling was not the answer to Europe’s energy security challenge.

“This is about the next steps, where we really open up some risk – both in terms of energy security, climate and biodiversity – or whether there is a smarter way to do it,” he told Reuters.

Reporting by Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen and Kate Abnett in Brussels. Editing by Mark Potter

The European Commission proposed new rules this month on the number of free emissions permits industries will receive ​until 2030

International News via Reuters:

An EU plan to gradually reduce the number of free CO2 permits given to industries has hit resistance from six governments that have demanded looser rules to help firms cope with the energy price impact of the Iran war, a document seen by Reuters showed.

The European Commission proposed new rules this month on the number of free emissions permits industries will receive ​until 2030. 

With concerns mounting about the faltering competitiveness of the 27-member European Union, Brussels said the change would have the overall impact of lowering the carbon costs industry has to pay by €4 billion ($4.66 billion) by the end of the decade, by reducing the number of free allocations handed out more slowly than initially expected.

But Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have asked the Commission to instead freeze the number of the CO2 permits given out for free at last year’s levels.

In a joint paper seen by Reuters they said high energy prices, which have surged since the start of the Iran war at the end of February, were a risk to the competitiveness of energy intensive industries.

“This could lead to increased threat of loss of their competitiveness in global markets, of closures or relocation outside of the EU,” they said of the proposed rules.

The Emissions Trading System, the EU’s ​carbon market, is the bloc’s main tool for ​addressing CO2 emissions and climate change, which it does by forcing ⁠industries to buy permits when they pollute.

While some heavy industries and governments whose countries have carbon-intensive energy mixes are lobbying for more free CO2 permits, other governments including Spain and Sweden, which are further along in the clean energy transition, have asked Brussels not to weaken the emissions trading system.

EU countries’ industry ministers will discuss the six governments’ paper at a meeting on Thursday. A final version of the Commission’s free CO2 permit rules is expected to be adopted by the end of June.

The EU is also preparing to propose a longer-term revision of the emissions trading system in mid-July, to align it with the bloc’s 2040 climate target.

($1 = 0.8590 euros)

Reporting by Kate Abnett; editing by Barbara Lewis

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada would opt for Saab’s GlobalEye, which is based on Bombardier’s Global 6500 jet

International News via Reuters:

Canada, which says it wants to reduce reliance on U.S. defense firms, on Wednesday announced plans to buy a fleet of early warning planes from Sweden’s Saab rather than a competing option from Boeing.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada would opt for Saab’s GlobalEye, which is based on Bombardier’s Global 6500 jet. Boeing’s E-7 Wedgetail plane – which has suffered from delays and cost overruns – had also been in contention.   

“With a suite of advanced sensors and mission systems, Saab’s GlobalEye will be a key resource for the Canadian Armed Forces to detect and deter threats across the Arctic,” Carney told a defense conference in Ottawa.

The Prime Minister pledged in March that Canada would take full responsibility for protecting its vast Arctic territory, after relying on decades on a partnership with the U.S. to monitor its more than 4.4 million square km (1.7 million square miles) of land and ​sea, a territory larger than India. 

Carney’s Liberal government last year announced plans to ramp up defense spending. The United States and other allies had complained for years Canada was not meeting long-standing NATO targets on military expenditure; Carney announced in March Canada hit that target of spending 2% of its GDP on defense last year.

In a statement, Saab said it planned to invest in research and development work in Canada as part of any deal.

Although Carney did not give details of the fleet size or the cost of a potential contract, military officials had earlier said they were looking to buy six early warning aircraft.

Philippe Lagasse, associate director of international affairs at Ottawa’s Carleton University, said Canada’s decision to buy the GlobalEye planes was “an important test case for the Carney government’s policy of pivoting away from American military capability.” 

He said in a statement that the decision confirms Canada’s relationship with Sweden, a new NATO ally that has also been keen to strengthen its ties to the Canadian military. 

Canada has previously said it is keen to work more closely with the Nordic countries in the Arctic on defense and other issues, in a global environment where the U.S. has become a less reliable partner. 

“GlobalEye is already creating jobs in Canada, and working with the Canadian supply chain. This decision ties our two nations even closer together,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristerson said in a social media post.

Saab is also in the running to sell Canada some of its Gripen fighters.

Canada has a deal to buy 88 F-35 jets from Lockheed-Martin but last year, after the United States slapped tariffs on key Canadian imports, Carney asked the military to probe whether it could cut back the order and buy some planes from another manufacturer. 

Carney later told reporters Ottawa would make a decision on the fighter fleet in due course and declined to comment when asked whether the military would be operating two jets.

Last week a Pentagon official, speaking after Washington suspended planned biannual defense talks with Canada, said the delay in making a decision on the F-35s showed how Ottawa was prioritizing politics over defense issues.

Still, Lagasse of Carleton University said he expected Canada would ultimately decide to stick with a fleet of F-35 jets rather than splitting the fleet by buying someSaab Gripens.

“If the government was determined to buy Gripens, I would have expected them to make the announcement alongside this (GlobalEye) decision,” he said.  

Additional reporting by Promit Mukherjee and Maria Cheng;Editing by Nick Zieminski