NUNZIUM

News That Matters

12/09/2022 ---- 13/09/2022

On September 12 Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that "since the beginning of September our soldiers have already liberated 6,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory in the east and south, and we are continuing to advance". It is yet not clear if this counteroffensive could be the tipping point of the war. However, it is confirmed also from Russian sources that Kremlin’s troops have lost key cities in the north-eastern Kharkiv region and are under pressure in other key locations in the South. To date Russia still holds one fifth of the country and maintains troops and munitions in Ukrainian territory. Eastern media argue that this will lead to a prolonged conflict. In the meantime in Russia the sentiment that the “special military operation” was a mistake is mounting: dozens of municipal deputies from Moscow and St. Petersburg have called on President Vladimir Putin to resign in an open letter published Monday, despite the signatories being now at risk of severe punishment. “President Putin's actions are detrimental to the future of Russia and its citizens” reads the petition. Even more notable, such criticism seeped onto state-controlled Russian TV. “People who convinced President Putin that the operation will be fast and effective ... these people really set up all of us,” Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament member, said on a talk show on NTV television. “We're now at the point where we have to understand that it's absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using these resources and colonial war methods.” Despite this criticism the Kremlin continues to state that the objectives of the special military operations will be achieved as Russia’s forces are now being reinforced.

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The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21 in Paris, on 12 December 2015 and entered into force on 4 November 2016. Its goal is to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. A study published on September 8 on Science highlights the importance of such objectives: by reviewing historic records and more than 200 peer-reviewed works, scientists determined that multiple climate tipping points could be triggered if global temperature rises beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. By “tipping point” is meant the minimum amount of warming that might trigger a catastrophic shift in a system. The team found that at the current level of global warming - 1.1°C since the preindustrial era - Earth has already passed the low-end risk estimate for five tipping points, putting coral reefs, permafrost, and polar ice at risk. For polar ice sheets, however, the authors estimate that 1.5°C is the more likely tipping threshold, and that the sheets might be able to withstand as much as 3°C of warming without irreversible decline. Despite the study also indicates that a lot of really bad tipping points are still avoidable, lead author David Armstrong McKay from Stockholm Resilience Centre, University of Exeter, and the Earth Commission says that “the chance of crossing tipping points can be reduced by rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, starting immediately”.

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