Copyright The New York Times
Island countries warned about this The nightmare scenario unfolded in the Caribbean this week. Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica late Tuesday as one of the strongest Category 5 storms on record, at one point packing winds of almost 298 kilometers per hour (185 m.p.h.). A Jamaican government minister called the damage reports “catastrophic.” Nearly three-quarters of the country is without power, and more than a third of the population was directly affected by the storm. Then Melissa moved on to Cuba, where the damage was also extensive, and to Haiti, where at least 20 people have died. It is expected to “remain a powerful hurricane” as it moves across the Bahamas later Wednesday and near Bermuda on Thursday night. (See the latest updates here.) We still don’t know the full scope of the catastrophe, or whether this storm was intensified by climate change, but we do know that greenhouse gas emissions have fueled warmer seas and bigger storms. The island countries understood that a day like this would come. The world’s poorest countries are suffering the most from climate change, despite being least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause it. Island states around the world have been pleading for more help for years, warning that they face impending disaster. But rich countries have repeatedly failed to meet their pledges to fund adaptation efforts. Since Donald Trump was elected president, the United States has stopped providing nearly any funding for preparedness and recovery to other countries. ‘The reality is that it could all be wiped out’ Hurricanes have inflicted tens of billions of dollars of damage on Caribbean nations in recent years. Reconstruction efforts have contributed to enormous piles of debt. Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, and Antigua and Barbuda, all recently hit by major hurricanes, have debts that are nearly equal to their entire economies. Countries go further in debt after disasters to provide for people’s basic needs and to cover economic losses. But the need to repay those debts also makes it harder to build the protections that could limit damage from future disasters. The International Monetary Fund has said the region needs to invest about $100 billion in this kind of climate resilience. “Our countries don’t have the luxury to become more resilient to climate change,” said Michai Robertson, a senior adviser to the Alliance of Small Island States. Robertson is from Antigua and Barbuda, which was decimated by Hurricane Irma in 2017. That storm caused more than $77 billion in damage across the Caribbean and South Florida. “If people are facing the choice between getting shutters for your home versus getting food on the table, the obvious, humane choice is the latter,” he said. “But the reality is that it all could be wiped out.” Pledging money, falling short Next week, negotiators from around the world will go to Brazil for the United Nations’ annual climate summit. These summits have been increasingly dominated by the question of money. The U.N. has issued studies showing that developing countries need more than $1 trillion per year to move their economies away from the fossil fuels that drive climate change, and to adapt to changes that are already happening. In 2021, wealthy countries agreed to double the amount they give for adaptation, which would amount to at least $40 billion annually by 2025. A report released on Wednesday by the U.N. shows that adaptation aid is actually declining. The Biden administration had sought to deliver roughly $3.1 billion in climate adaptation aid for 2023. President Trump stopped the U.S. from contributing funding to help vulnerable countries prepare for the threats from global warming. The administration has dismantled nearly all of the foreign aid programs and offices that work with poor countries. Israeli strikes in Gaza Israel said it would resume a cease-fire after carrying out strikes in Gaza that killed at least 100 people, according to Gazan health officials. The strikes began late Tuesday, after the Israeli government accused Hamas of violating the truce by failing to return the bodies of dead captives and by attacking Israeli forces in southern Gaza. On Wednesday, the Israeli defense minister, Israel Katz, said “dozens of Hamas commanders” had been killed in the strikes. In a statement, Hamas accused Israel of seeking to undermine the cease-fire and criticized the United States. Munir al-Bursh, director general of Gaza’s health ministry, said 35 children were among those killed. The Israeli military said the cease-fire resumed at 10 a.m. local time, but on Wednesday evening it released a statement saying that it had attacked a weapon-storage site in northern Gaza. What they’re deciphering … in Teotihuacan Archaeologists have learned much about the ruins of the ancient city of Teotihuacan, near Mexico City. But the glyphs on its murals and pottery have so far seemed impossible to decode. Two researchers are trying to solve this puzzle in a novel way, by reconstructing an ancient language, Uto-Aztecan, through its not-so-ancient descendants, including Nahuatl, Cora and Huichol. The project faces some limitations. There are only about 300 known texts from Teotihuacan, compared with the thousands of documented Aztec or Maya texts that helped scholars learn those writing systems. But the researchers have proposed interpretations for several symbols, with another 18 readings they “feel very, very good about.” Read more.
