‘I left university and adopted my brother and sister’

Published on: November 04, 2021 0

When Jemma Bere's family was in crisis, she made a split-second decision that changed the course of her life. At an age when most people are preoccupied with relationships and careers, Jemma's sole focus became her two half-siblings.

There was nothing conventional about Jemma's childhood.

"I remember spending a lot of time in sleeping bags looking up at the stars," she says.

Packed into their blue and white Land Rover, the family had driven around most of Europe, and travelled from Bali, through Malaysia, to Thailand.

"My mum was definitely a free spirit," Jemma says. "She thought it was a fantastic experience for me to be schooled in the process of travelling and meeting new people."

Image caption,

Jemma's mum, Jane, with son Calvin on a train in Asia, around 1992

By the age of 10 Jemma could speak several languages. A year later the family was living on a ramshackle sailing boat on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. But when her mother's relationship with her partner broke down, Jemma and four-year-old Calvin returned with her to Powys in Wales.

"I think my mum liked the idea of having an idyllic cottage with lots of children and dogs, and roses over the door," Jemma says. "And she and my nan were very close, so we came back to Brecon."

By the time Jemma was doing her GCSEs Jemma's mother, Jane, had a new partner - a bricklayer everyone knew as Shakey - with whom she went on to have a boy and a girl, Alex and Billie, 14 and 15 years younger than Jemma.

"Shakey was very charismatic, and I think they had a genuine love for each other," Jemma says, "but he did drink quite a lot."

Image caption,

Shakey and Jane married in 1996

Shakey liked a pint after work - sometimes many pints. It would get late and Jane would worry. She'd try phoning, but either there was no signal or he wouldn't answer, so she'd get in the car and go looking for him, leaving Jemma in charge of the three children.

"And I wouldn't know when she was coming back," Jemma says.

Once Jane also started drinking heavily everything began to slide.

"When I came home from school, things that would have normally been done wouldn't have been - cleaning the kitchen after breakfast, those sorts of things had been left all day," Jemma says.

Then, while she was studying for her A-levels in 2001, Jane and Shakey decided to move to Andalucia in Spain. They'd been having some financial difficulties as a result of Shakey's drinking, and there was plenty of work there for bricklayers.

"I think it represented a new start," Jemma says, "and from what I could gather the first few months were really positive."

Jemma stayed in Wales with her nan, thinking she might move to Spain after her exams, while Calvin, her younger brother, went to live with his father.

Only a few months later, there was devastating news - Jane had been in a road accident.

Jemma tried to phone Shakey to get more details, but there was no answer. Desperate for information, she put her A-level Spanish to good use and began calling all the hospitals in southern Spain to find her mother.

When she eventually managed to speak to Shakey he was in a state. They'd been crossing a quiet road on foot when Jane had been hit by a speeding truck, he said. In a matter of hours she had died, aged only 40.

"I felt utterly, utterly lost," Jemma says. "Like I was away at sea without any anchor or compass or anything."

• Jemma Bere spoke to Jane Garvey for  interviews with people about a moment that has reshaped their life. The programme was produced by Andrea Kennedy.

After Jane's funeral in Brecon, Shakey returned to Spain with Alex and Billie.

"That surprised quite a lot of people," Jemma says, "but I think part of him was doing it because my mum had been happy there."

Jemma still contemplated joining them in Spain, but she had done well in her exams so now had other options too.

"And I decided to go to university - partly because I think that's what my mum would have wanted," she says.

Every holiday Jemma would find the cheapest flight to travel to Spain, giving her uni friends the impression that she led quite an exotic lifestyle. "It wasn't quite like that," she says.

Image caption,

Billie and Alex, aged 3 and 4, in Zurgena, around 2002

Shakey and the children lived in a small, close-knit community; everyone knew him because he was out drinking all the time, running up bar tabs all over town. When Jemma visited it was obvious that he wasn't coping well. He'd do a building job and spend all his earnings in the pub, or disappear for days at a time after nipping out for cigarettes. Despite becoming increasingly dependent on alcohol, he wasn't willing to seek help.

"We had frequent arguments about it when I went out there - he wouldn't accept that he had a problem at all, he was completely in denial," Jemma says.

"I think he genuinely thought he was doing the best that he could in really difficult circumstances. But he spent more time in the pub than he did with the children."

During term time, while Jemma was at university, Marisa, a nanny Shakey had hired to help him with the children, held everything together.

"She arranged for them to go to a Spanish school," Jemma says, "and she was absolutely wonderful, she adored them."

But Marisa received news that her mother was unwell and had to return to Argentina straight away.

A few weeks later Jemma got a phone call saying that Alex and Billie had been taken into care.

"I was heartbroken," she says, "but not very surprised.

Jemma travelled to Spain immediately. She was told that Shakey would need to be sober for three months, hold down a job for at least as long, and get himself a house if he wanted to stand any chance of getting the children back.

Since the children had been taken away he'd fallen behind with his rent and lost his home. Jemma helped him find a job and a place to live. But she couldn't get him to stay off the drink.

"I think he did know he was an alcoholic, but I never heard him admit it out loud," Jemma says. "He couldn't stop."

Three months later, the authorities in Spain told Jemma that unless somebody in the family could take care of Alex and Billie they were going to be put up for adoption. There was no guarantee that they would be kept together, or that they would be placed with a family that spoke English. It may even not be possible for Jemma to continue to see them.

"And I heard myself saying, 'Well, I'll look after them then - send me the forms.'"

Jemma put the phone down, and soon started to question what she'd done.

"Not whether it was right, but whether I was the right person to do it," she says. "I was worried about taking them away from a language and a culture that they knew… People that adopt normally have a lot of money, they might have nice homes - I had absolutely nothing."

To begin with, Jemma's family couldn't believe what she'd signed up for, barely six months after graduating.

"They were so angry with Shakey, they didn't see why I had to 'throw my life away' in order to rectify a problem he had created," she says. "They used that phrase - I never saw it as that."

But Jemma was only 23, and everyone worried that she didn't know what she was getting herself into.

Image caption,

At the care home in Almeria, 2007

The formal adoption process was lengthy and complex. Throughout the 18 months that it took for a decision to be made, Jemma was repeatedly warned that the odds of her getting custody of the children were slim.

"I kept being told I was not going to get them because I didn't have a house, or I didn't have the right set-up, or I didn't have this, and I didn't have that," she says.

Jemma moved back to Brecon, because that felt like the right place to be if she did get custody, while in Spain Alex and Billie were moved from a care home into an extremely strict, traditional Catholic orphanage. To this day the sight of nuns still makes them shudder, Jemma says.

She couldn't tell them anything about what she was trying to do.

"I didn't want to get their hopes up. And by that time, they'd stopped asking whether they were going home or not."

Finally, one sunny July afternoon, the adoption lawyer rang to tell Jemma she could go to Spain to collect Alex and Billie as soon as she wanted.

"I can't really describe the feeling - whether it was relief, or excitement, or fear, or probably all of the above," she says.

Within a matter of days, Jemma had organised a new house and furnished it with the help of the credit card her mum had told her only to use in emergencies. The flights for her and the children were paid for the same way.

Alex and Billie still had no inkling of what was about to happen.

"They were absolutely delighted," Jemma says. "It was amazing, but I think they also didn't really believe it - they'd been let down so many times."

Image caption,

Alex and Billie pictured soon after Jemma became their legal guardian, on their first holiday in Tenby, 2009

Now 24, Jemma was suddenly responsible for two children, aged eight and nine.

Financially, things were tough. Jemma couldn't work because she couldn't afford childcare. And because she wasn't yet Alex and Billie's legal guardian she wasn't entitled to most benefits. For the first six months, the three of them had to live on £90 a week.

"They were happy times," Jemma recalls, "but they were extremely poor times as well."

To begin with, Alex and Billie stuck to each other like glue.

"One of the really positive signs was when they started arguing," Jemma says. "They'd only had each other for such a long time. I thought that was a really good sign that they were growing independently."

They had lost most of their English, so a course Jemma had taken at university on teaching English as a foreign language suddenly came in handy. She stuck Post-It notes to everything in their home, in both English and Spanish, to help the children remember words they had forgotten.

"And after a couple of weeks they just started saying, 'Jemma, we don't speak Spanish, we speak English now.'"

Parenting was tremendously hard work.

"There are so many things that need to be done. You can't stop and think about it," she says.

And the children could be a handful.

"There have been times when I've been head-in-hand thinking, 'I wish my mum was here, because I remember doing this to her and I am so, so sorry.'"

Image caption,

Billie, Jemma and Alex in Argentina where they visited the nanny who had looked after them as children, 2017

It took a year for Jemma to be awarded a special guardianship order, making her the children's legal parent. That marked a turning point for Alex and Billie, who'd grown so accustomed to being moved around that they hadn't really believed they'd be able to stay with Jemma for good.

It took at least as long for Jemma to become comfortable going on a night out, and having a relationship wasn't something she even considered.

"Dating wasn't on my radar for a long time, not until the children were about 16," she says.

When she started working full-time for the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, she struggled with what she describes as "proper mum guilt".

"I was so conscious of how hard I'd fought for them to be here," she says. "If I was spending time working or if I was too tired to deal with whatever it was that they wanted, that really hit me."

At some point Shakey returned to the UK from Spain. He was living in a homeless shelter in Swansea when Jemma visited him in 2017.

"He'd lost all his sparkle and mischievousness," she says. "I think he had a lot of regrets. But what I say to the children is that their dad wasn't a bad man, he wasn't malicious, he was extremely ill."

Shakey drank himself to death in 2018.

Now that Alex and Billie are about the same age she was when she set out to adopt them, Jemma can understand why some people felt she was making a mistake.

"If they turned around and said to me that they were adopting two children I'd hit the roof!" she laughs.

But she's immensely proud of how they have turned out.

"They've gone through so much. They could have gone in a completely different direction, but they're just such lovely, well-rounded, human beings."

Both have inherited their mother's passion for seeing the world. After A-levels Alex went travelling around New Zealand for a year and later worked as a snowboarding instructor in Canada, while Billie studied travel and tourism at college.

And as time has gone on, Jemma has begun to feel less like a mum and more like a sibling.

"I'm like a big sister but with extra superpowers, I think is probably the best way to describe it," she says.

Another change is that these days strangers aren't so puzzled when they meet them.

"When they were younger - or when I was younger - people often asked me how old I was and how old the children were, and I could see them doing the maths in their head and raising an eyebrow," Jemma says. "Sometimes I told them, but mostly I let them think what they wanted to."

At 38, Jemma now has the house to herself and a lot less laundry to do. She has been in a relationship for seven years, but says she has never really wanted to have her own children. Bringing up her siblings, though, is something she has absolutely no regrets about.

"It's the best decision that I've ever made."

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COP26: World leaders promise to end deforestation by 2030

Published on: November 02, 2021 0

More than 100 world leaders have promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, in the COP26 climate summit's first major deal.

Brazil - where stretches of the Amazon rainforest have been cut down - was among the signatories on Tuesday.

The pledge includes almost £14bn ($19.2bn) of public and private funds.

Experts welcomed the move, but warned a previous deal in 2014 had "failed to slow deforestation at all" and commitments needed to be delivered on.

Felling trees contributes to climate change because it depletes forests that absorb vast amounts of the warming gas CO2.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the global meeting in Glasgow, said "more leaders than ever before" - a total of 110 - had made the "landmark" commitment.

"We have to stop the devastating loss of our forests," he said - and "end the role of humanity as nature's conqueror, and instead become nature's custodian".

The two-week summit in Glasgow is seen as crucial if climate change is to be brought under control.

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The countries who have signed the pledge - including Canada, Brazil, Russia, China, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the US and the UK (the full list is here) - cover around 85% of the world's forests.

Some of the funding will go to developing countries to restore damaged land, tackle wildfires and support indigenous communities.

Governments of 28 countries also committed to remove deforestation from the global trade of food and other agricultural products such as palm oil, soya and cocoa.

These industries drive forest loss by cutting down trees to make space for animals to graze or crops to grow.

More than 30 of the world's biggest financial companies - including Aviva, Schroders and Axa - have also promised to end investment in activities linked to deforestation.

And a £1.1bn fund will be established to protect the world's second largest tropical rainforest - in the Congo Basin.

Media caption,A logger, an environmental policeman, a cattle rancher and an environmentalist share their views on Amazon's future

Prof Simon Lewis, an expert on climate and forests at University College London, said: "It is good news to have a political commitment to end deforestation from so many countries, and significant funding to move forward on that journey."

But he told the BBC the world "has been here before" with a declaration in 2014 in New York "which failed to slow deforestation at all".

Hope and challenges ahead

There are reasons to be cheerful about the proposed plan to limit deforestation, specifically the scale of the funding, and the key countries that are supporting the pledge.

It is also very positive that it will try to reinforce the role of indigenous people in protecting their trees. Studies have shown that protecting the rights of native communities is one of the best ways of saving forested lands.

But there are significant challenges.

Many previous plans haven't achieved their goals. In fact, deforestation has increased since a similar pledge was launched in 2014.

There are often disputes between donors and recipients - Norway suspended funding for an Amazon fund in 2019 in an argument with Brazil's president.

There are also major questions over how a major financial pledge could be effectively policed.

How can funders verify that forests are actually being protected without spying from satellites or challenging national sovereignty in some way?

And question marks also hang over a key plank of the new plan, which is to try to remove the link to deforestation from consumer goods sold in developed countries.

One aspect is eating meat from animals, raised on imported soy grown on cleared lands. Will governments push companies and consumers to eat less meat to save the world's most important forests?

Ecologist Dr Nigel Sizer called the agreement "a big deal" - but that some will find the target of 2030 disappointing.

"We're facing a climate emergency so giving ourselves another 10 years to address this problem doesn't quite seem consistent with that," said Dr Sizer, a former president of the Rainforest Alliance.

"But maybe this is realistic and the best that they can achieve."

What was the failed 2014 agreement?

The New York Declaration on Forests was a voluntary and legally non-binding agreement on deforestation in 2014It aimed to half deforestation by 2020, and halt it by 2030 - and 40 governments eventually signed up. But some key countries like Brazil and Russia weren't among themBut the agreement failed, a report in 2019 found, saying deforestation was still continuing at an alarming rate

The deal's signatories include a number of key countries.

Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of palm oil, a product found in everything from shampoo to biscuits. Production is driving tree destruction and territory loss for indigenous people.

Meanwhile, Russia's huge natural forests, with more than one fifth of the planet's trees, capture more than 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon annually.

In the planet's biggest rainforest, the Amazon, deforestation accelerated to a 12-year high in 2020 under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Asked whether leaders like Brazil's Mr Bolsonaro could be trusted to abide by the pledge, the UK's Environment Secretary George Eustice said "we should be really positive when countries engage".

"Last time there was an attempt at getting such a commitment on forests [in 2014], Brazil didn't take part, neither did Russia, neither did China.

"Brazil, they've really engaged with us on this

agenda. It's a big step for them."

But pressed on whether the agreement will be enforceable, Mr Eustice said: "It doesn't go as far into talking about enforcement mechanisms and so forth, that's not the nature of these agreements."

He said what was different about this pledge in particular is that there is "the finance to back [it] up".

US President Joe Biden said he was "confident" the global pledge could be met, telling world leaders: "All we need to do is summon the will and do what we know is right. We can do this."

He said the US would lead by example, and announced it would spend $9bn (£6.6bn) to conserve and restore forests.

COP26 climate summit - The basics

Climate change is one of the world's most pressing problems. Governments must promise more ambitious cuts in warming gases if we are to prevent greater global temperature rises.The summit in Glasgow is where change could happen. You need to watch for the promises made by the world's biggest polluters, like the US and China, and whether poorer countries are getting the support they need.All our lives will change. Decisions made here could impact our jobs, how we heat our homes, what we eat and how we travel.

Read more about the COP26 summit here.

Ana Yang, executive director at Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator, who co-wrote the report Rethinking the Brazilian Amazon, said: "This deal involves more countries, more players and more money. But the devil is in the detail which we still need to see."

She said it was a "big building block" in the mission to keep global temperature rises below 1.5C.

But many people living in the Amazon, including in its urban areas, depend on the forest for their livelihoods and they need support in finding new incomes, she added.

Tuntiak Katan, from the Coordination of Indigenous Communities of the Amazon Basin, welcomed the deal, saying that funds should be invested in supporting indigenous communities who are able to manage and protect forests.

Mr Katan, an indigenous Shuar from Ecuador, told the BBC indigenous communities globally protected 80% of the world's biodiversity but faced threats and violence.

"For years we have protected our way of life and that has protected ecosystems and forests. Without us, no money or policy can stop climate change," he said.

One of the biggest causes of forest loss in Brazil is to grow soy beans, much of which goes to China and Europe for animal feed for pigs and chickens, said Dr Sizer.

"We all end up consuming that, unless we're strict vegetarians and we don't eat soy. It's a very serious problem that we're all connected with."

Trees are one of our major defences in a warming world. They suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, acting as so-called carbon sinks. They absorb around one third of global CO2 emitted each year.

Currently an area of forest the size of 27 football pitches is lost every minute.

How is the Amazon forest cleared?

Depleted forests can also start to release CO2. If too many trees are cut down, scientists are worried that the planet will reach a tipping point that will set off abrupt and unpredictable climatic change.

On the second day of the two-week climate summit, the US and EU are also launching an initiative that aims to drive global efforts to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas which comes from sources including fossil fuel extraction and livestock farming.

Under present targets, the world is on track for warming of 2.7C by 2100 - which the UN says would result in "climate catastrophe".

The COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow in November is seen as crucial if climate change is to be brought under control. Almost 200 countries are being asked for their plans to cut emissions, and it could lead to major changes to our everyday lives.

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Japanese man dressed as Joker injures 17 on Tokyo train

Published on: October 31, 2021 0

source: long distance Mom youtube

A 24-year-old man dressed as the Joker character from the Batman comics attacked passengers on a Tokyo train line on Sunday evening.

As many as 17 people were injured as they headed for Halloween parties in the city.

Witnesses say the suspect sprayed a clear liquid around the carriage and set it alight.

Video footage showed passengers running through carriages away from flames and clambering out of train windows.

"I thought it was a Halloween stunt," one witness told the Yomiuri newspaper about the attack. "Then, I saw a man walking this way, slowly waving a long knife."

The attack happened at around 20:00 local time (11:00 GMT) near Kokuryo station, in the city's western suburbs. Eyewitnesses said the suspect was wearing a bright purple and green suit.

Media reports say the man was arrested by police on the spot.

According to news outlet Kyodo, he told police he adored the character Joker in the Batman comics.

The Joker is a super villain in the comics and batman's archenemy. In fact, the 2019 hit movie Joker starring actor Joaquin Phoenix featured a violent scene where he attacks several men on a train after being repeatedly harassed by them. It's a pivotal scene, marking the beginning of the character's transformation into the Joker.

Local media reports say that the suspect told authorities he wanted to kill people so he could be sentenced to death.

The AP news agency, citing the Tokyo Fire Department, said three of the injured had serious wounds. Local media reports an elderly man was unconscious after being stabbed in the attack.

Video from the scene shows passengers running from the attacker, stumbling through a connecting door between carriages and climbing through the train's windows after it made an emergency stop.

IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS

Image caption,Video from the incident shows people jumping out of the train as it fills with smoke

Shunsuke Kimura, who filmed one of the videos, told the national NHK broadcaster that the scene was "horrifying". "Train doors were closed and we had no idea what was happening, and we jumped from the windows," he said.

The suspect, who was arrested at the scene, told authorities he "wanted to kill people so he could be sentenced to death", local media reported.

Violent crime is rare in Japan but there have been a number of high-profile knife attacks in recent years.

Ten people were injured by a knife-wielding man on another Tokyo commuter train in August. In 2019, a man attacked a group of schoolchildren waiting for a bus in Kawasaki, killing two and injuring at least 18 others.

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Can COP26 really save the planet?

Published on: October 31, 2021 0

Will COP26 be a climate "turning point" as Boris Johnson wants, or more "blah blah blah" of the kind Greta Thunberg condemns?

At face value, things do not look promising, for a simple reason: the previous 25 of these giant conferences failed to turn off the tap of the greenhouse gases that are driving up global temperatures.

Despite three decades of talking, the planet is now at least 1.1C hotter than the pre-industrial level - and rising.

Even if everyone sticks to their current promises to reduce emissions, we'll still be on course for a dangerous increase of 2.7C by the end of the century.

For this conference, however, expectations for real progress are higher than usual.

That's partly because the risks are hitting home. This year floods killed 200 people in Germany, heatwaves struck chilly Canada and even the Siberian Arctic was burning.

And scientists now have the evidence to say it's unequivocal that human activity is behind climate change and that's making violent extremes more likely.

They're also clearer than ever that avoiding the most damaging temperatures means halving global carbon emissions by 2030 - a deadline looming close enough to focus minds.

And we are seeing something unimaginable even a few years ago: an unprecedented flurry of countries and businesses, some more plausibly than others, pledging to go net zero by mid-century.

That means any greenhouse gases they're still releasing by then should be balanced by an equivalent amount absorbed from the atmosphere, through tree-planting for example.

So will Glasgow be the venue where the world shifts towards a zero-carbon future?

In truth, it's never likely that a single meeting could ever achieve that.

COPs were set up specifically for governments to tackle climate change, and the annual round of conferences does remain the only forum to tackle the problem collectively.

But they operate by consensus between nearly 200 countries that all have very different perspectives.

Media caption,Watch how three Kuwaitis cope in their country's "unbearable" heat

"Try herding 200 cats," one official once told me.

Many of the nations that are rich in oil or coal have been downright hostile to the whole climate agenda, and have tried everything to slow it down.

Others that are poor and vulnerable see rising temperatures threatening their very existence and are desperate for help.

At the first COP I reported from, in the deep freeze of a Montreal winter in 2005, the pace of talks matched the glacial weather.

Negotiators were arguing overnight over 'square brackets' that marked unresolved and impenetrable points in a text that was never destined to leave much of a trace.

When they finally reached agreement at dawn - and I spotted the then UK environment secretary Margaret Beckett with tears in her eyes - I asked a veteran observer what was being celebrated.

"They've agreed to keep talking," he said, without irony. "So the process continues."

And the conferences have rolled on, more or less productively, and at the nine I've witnessed so far, there have been some painful scenes.

In Nairobi in 2006, I heard a frustrated German minister ask why anyone bothered to turn up.

In Bali in 2007, the top UN official, exhausted and exasperated, started weeping openly.

A really simple guide to climate changeHow do we know humans caused climate change?How hot could it get where you live?

And in Copenhagen in 2009, clumsy hosting triggered walkouts that nearly led the talks to collapse.

Yet one former UK government adviser, who was at the heart of those negotiations in Denmark, believes that COPs, for all their faults, are an essential mechanism.

Without them, according to Prof Mike Jacobs - now of the University of Sheffield - "emissions would have risen even higher than they are now".

He says having "a simultaneous and collective commitment" forces governments to stay focused on the problem.

And that led to the COP that stands out as a rare example of success - Paris in 2015.

The French government, supported by a carefully cultivated alliance, ushered in the Paris Agreement, the first accord of its kind to tackle climate change.

This was a landmark moment because never before had every country agreed to act together to limit the rise in temperatures to 2C or, if possible, a lower target of 1.5C.

COP26 climate summit - The basics

Climate change is one of the world's most pressing problems. Governments must promise more ambitious cuts in warming gases if we are to prevent greater global temperature rises.The summit in Glasgow is where change could happen. You need to watch for the promises made by the world's biggest polluters, like the US and China, and whether poorer countries are getting the support they need.All our lives will change. Decisions made here could affect our jobs, how we heat our homes, what we eat and how we travel.

Read more about the COP26 summit here.

Yes, the most difficult small print was left unresolved and the accord is entirely voluntary - no country is obliged to cut its emissions faster than it wants to.

But Prof Jacobs reckons that setting up a global framework generated a sense of momentum, which in itself has proved significant.

That's because more and more of the world's governments are now setting their own targets for renewable energy or phasing out petrol and diesel cars, and that sends a message to businesses that the agenda is serious.

So investments in wind and solar power have recently been so vast that their costs have tumbled, which in turn makes a zero-carbon transition more feasible.

And provided the Glasgow talks don't collapse in acrimony, that signal of a greener direction should get even more attention.

It could be a 'tipping-point' where big investors start to shift their trillions of dollars out of fossil fuels - a few days ago Europe's largest pension fund announced it would do just that.

Already the giant carmakers are having to gear up to go electric, and shipping companies - long accused of dragging their feet - are under pressure to clean up too.

Plans to decarbonise even the most polluting industries - with so-called 'green cement' and 'green steel' - are becoming more mainstream.

But the speed of this response is the key question for COP26.

As things stand, given all the pledges made so far, greenhouse gas emissions are actually set to rise by 16% by 2030, rather than fall by 45% as the science demands.

And if the picture remains unchanged after a fortnight of talking, the accusations of failure will come thick and fast.

A second challenge is finance for the poorest countries, hit hardest by rising sea levels, floods and droughts, and needing help to go green.

They've long felt let down, seeing promises unfulfilled, including a key pledge that was seen as a fundamental issue of trust, for assistance worth $100bn a year to be delivered by now.

Prof Saleemul Huq, an adviser to the prime minister of Bangladesh, is among those cynical about the whole process.

"This annual shindig is redundant - it's not as if climate change is an issue just once a year.

"It's happening now for everyone, every day, not some time in the future - it needs attention all the time."

So what is Prof Huq expecting?

"I presume they'll manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat in the end but you journalists must check the details of what's announced - is it really what they say it is?"

Ultimately, the conferences provide a focus for climate action but they can never lead to a transformation overnight.

The observer in Montreal was right: it's about a process.

And in a sign of managed expectations for Glasgow, there's talk of the next gatherings: COP27 in Egypt, and COP28, maybe in Qatar.

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Southport historic buildings to be transformed in £1.5m deal

Published on: October 30, 2021 0

Historic buildings once used by a town's Edwardian shopkeepers are set to become a new purpose-built workspace for start-up businesses.

The Crown Buildings in Southport town centre will be transformed into the 'Enterprise Arcade' using £1.5m from the government's Towns Fund.

Sefton Council said it would help start-ups, including professionals and freelancers "taking their first steps".

The authority's cabinet is expected to approve the plans on Thursday.

Councillor Marion Atkinson, cabinet member for regeneration and skills, said: "This is a key project for the regeneration and economic diversification of Southport's economy.

"Our Enterprise Arcade will be the ideal location for a whole host of start-up and growing businesses and individuals, whether they be in the early incubator stages of developing their brand or simply in need of flexibility."

She said the 15,000 sq ft centre would help "agile" new businesses which do not need traditional office or retail space.

The council hopes to nurture previously untapped potential in the technology, digital and creative industries, she added.

The three-storey red-brick Crown Buildings opened in the early 20th Century with a "druggist" and "fancy-goods dealer" among their first occupants.

Noted for their pyramidal rooves and terracotta tiles, the buildings were Grade II-listed in 1972.

Detailed design work to develop the site into the proposed 'Enterprise Arcade' is expected to start later this year

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Budget 2021: Did you get what you wanted?

Published on: October 29, 2021 0

IMAGE SOURCE,RUBY TORRY

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has set out the government's spending and financial strategy in his Budget and Spending Review to the House of Commons.

He said while his plans do not "draw a line under Covid", they will prepare the economy for post-pandemic life.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said disposable incomes were unlikely to rise by much over the next five years.

Labour has said Mr Sunak has not done enough to help families suffering from rising food and fuel prices.

We asked five people across the UK whether they got what they wanted from this Budget.

'No point' in national living wage increase

Ruby Torry, a 23-year-old waitress at Zizzi's restaurant in the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield, lives in Rotherham with her mother.

She will see her wages increased after the chancellor announced a rise to the National Living Wage, however, Ruby believes her hourly rate uplift from £8.91 to £9.50 will be "useless" because of other rising costs.

"There's no point in them raising wages, because by the time they've raised your minimum wage, with higher national insurance and inflation, you're no better off," she said.

"They'll just stand on the pedestals - it's clear they're out of touch and just not bothered."

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Ms Torry was disappointed to see no measures announced to help households cope with rising domestic gas and electricity bills or rising food costs.

"I've not got kids but I can't imagine what its like for single parents now wondering how they're going to cope with all these costs at Christmas," she added.

Still struggling on universal credit

Depending on their circumstances, about two million people who are working and receiving universal credit will be better off. However, another two million of claimants will see no benefit because they either do not work or do not earn enough.

Michelle Wilson, a single mother from Glenrothes in Scotland, will see no benefit because she is currently trying to find employment. Ms Wilson used to work as a support officer for Fife council, but left her job partly because she struggled with the cost of childcare.

She told the BBC it would have been "helpful" for the Budget to encourage more flexible working hours to make childcare easier as she is limited to working from 09:00 to 15:00.

Ms Wilson said her finances had been challenged after the £20 weekly uplift in Universal Credit was ended on 6 October.

"It's a real worry because the uplift was almost £100 a month, which is my main shop gone now, so it's another big stress," she said.

"My kids have been eating healthier with that uplift and it's been a big drop when I'm worried about my gas and fuel bills."

However, Ms Wilson said the freeze on fuel duty was welcome.

50% business rates cut is 'very 

Jon Tolley, who runs an independent record shop Banquet Records in Kingston, Surrey, said the decision to temporarily cut business rates for shops, restaurants and bars by 50% was "probably more than we would have hoped for".

"The main thing to do is to encourage people to shop independently, it keeps money in the community," he said.

However, Mr Tolley said there was "nothing" in the Budget which he claimed could "make up for the problems caused by Brexit".

He was also disappointed to hear "little about climate action and climate change", but welcomed the increase to minimum wage.

"I want customers and my employees to have disposable income and cash in their pockets, so they can spend it on the High Streets," he 

Nick Grey founded Gtech, which makes floor cleaning and garden products and has a turnover of £70m. The firm employs 200 people across the UK and sells more than 22 million products in 19 countries.

While Mr Grey thought the announcements on encouraging overseas worker visas and keeping R&D tax credits were good ideas, he said the Budget decisions were "based on popularity rather than sound future policy".

"We are now seeing a huge deficit every year which means the country is getting into more and more debt," he added.

"To counter this the government have reduced interests rates to 0.1%, conveniently putting the decision with the Bank of England so they are not held responsible for it."

Mr Grey said a forecasted 4% inflation rate meant that "in effect, all the responsible people and companies who 'save for a rainy day' are being penalised so that governments can splash public money around to boost their popularity".

Hollie Whittles, digital strategy specialist and HR director at Purple Frog Systems, said the business rates announcement was "great news" and will benefit some of her firm's high street customers "massively".

"Extra spending and cutting taxes is a really positive move but on flip side it doesn't help our national debt," she said. "We must however ensure that our economy is stable so I support the priorities."

Ms Whittles said she was "delighted" to see that the Research and Development tax credits now included cloud computing costs.

"This is excellent news for my business which specialises in data analytics and for all businesses working in big data," she added

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Virtual reality headsets for work ‘could snowball’

Published on: October 29, 2021 0

IMAGE SOURCE,TYTO PR

Use of virtual reality headsets for workplace meetings could "snowball", a business group has said, as firms try to blend home and office working.

"We're likely to see it really take off quite quickly," Joe Fitzsimons of the Institute of Directors told the BBC's Wake Up To Money programme.

He's been investigating how firms are using tech to help staff based at home and in the office to work together.

Companies are looking at alternatives to using services such as Zoom.

"I think there will be a snowball effect of the benefits being so clear that organisations come to terms with it and employ it as fast as they can," said Mr Fitzsimons.

Zoom fatigue

During the pandemic video conferencing services such as Zoom have seen a huge increase in use, with many workers forced to work from home.

But now some companies are looking at alternative ways for colleagues to keep in touch.

"I was tired of just doing these things over Zoom," said Job Van Der Voort, the chief executive of international payroll company Remote.

"The way we use virtual reality (VR) is to replicate that feeling where you can hang out together. When you have an office you get a lot of things for free.

"You walk into the office, you see your colleagues, you can walk over to them and have a conversation with them. We lost this completely with not having an office."

Zoe Clark, a partner at the PR firm Tyto agrees. They issued their staff with VR headsets just before Christmas, to bring back that sense of closeness.

"For meetings it can be great to get people together when you can't physically be together" she said.

"We decided to have a go at playing around with virtual reality and seeing what it could do for our business at the midpoint of the pandemic, because obviously there was a really clear impact on us being able to meet up in person, everybody was totally remote.

"And we were really looking around for things that could make our staff feel a little bit more connected and just trying to inject a little bit more fun, really, in quite a tough year."

Mr Van Der Voort added: "You might think it's weird, you have an avatar, you have a headset on your head, [but] you actually get more of a sense of a presence rather than just sitting at your desk staring at Zoom."

What is it like in a virtual reality meeting?

The room is large and airy, filled with smaller huddles of people having a chat. If you stand in the middle of the room and turn around then you can hear different conversations. Now and then a burst of laughter causes everyone's heads to turn.

People are dressed in smart clothes eating pizza and drinking from bottles. But none of it is real - not the food, not the drink and not the people.

IMAGE SOURCE,REC ROOM

Image caption,The staff of Remote meet up in Rec Room

Instead, everyone there is in their own home, scattered across the globe and coming together using VR headsets and an app called Rec Room to chat and move around.

They are using VR to meet their colleagues and have dressed their cartoon avatars as themselves, choosing and personalising their skin tone, hair and outfits.

As they talk, their mouths and heads move, they can gesture with their hands and even dance. But although it is very different to a flat meeting through a screen, it is still a long way from meeting up in an office or at an event with real drinks, real pizza and real people.

Virtual future

While VR may work for socialising and chatting, it's not yet perfect for more formal meetings, said Mr Van Der Voort.

"There are some limitations still. For example, you can pull up some slides but it's much harder to do than just having a Zoom meeting.

"And you can't easily type because your hands are in the VR gloves. That actually makes having very serious meetings like that somewhat more difficult.

"We've had a few serious meetings in VR but most of them we use it as a way to bond with each other. And that is how it works best today - in a few years let's see."

Tyto's Ms Clark said: "I think it is definitely early days. We're really clear on meeting etiquette and how things work in a traditional business setting - it will take a little bit longer to get our VR meeting etiquette down so that we have a truly professional experience.

"But within your own teams I think definitely it creates a sense that you're out of your mundane flat interaction with a screen

Source: BBC News 

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