Good morning. Poorer countries are demanding richer nations do more to cut emissions. Voter approval of the prime minister is at its lowest since before the pandemic began. And bushfire survivors fear they have been abandoned.
Barack Obama has called on world leaders at Cop26 to “step up and step up now” to avert climate breakdown, singling out China and Russia for being foremost among countries that are failing to cut planet-heating emissions quickly enough, and saying “most nations have failed to be as ambitious as they need to be”. Chinese officials say they are sceptical of claims that Cop26 commitments will keep global heating below 2C, and want other countries to focus on concrete actions rather than distant targets in the final week of the talks. Meanwhile, poor countries say that nations that have failed to come up with national plans on cutting greenhouse gas emissions in line with limiting temperature rises to 1.5C must be forced back to the negotiating table every year from now on.
Voter approval of Scott Morrison is at its lowest level since before the outbreak of the pandemic, while the government’s handling of international relations has also taken a hit over the past month, the latest Guardian Essential poll suggests. After a torrid week on the international stage that saw Morrison’s feud with the French president dominating the agenda and Australia’s climate policies under the spotlight, the survey of 1,089 people tracked a six percentage point drop in the prime minister’s approval rating since October.
Nearly two years after fires devastated the New South Wales south coast, families are still living in caravans as they struggle to rebuild in the face of red tape, a skills shortage and dwindling government support, a Guardian investigation has found. As support services are withdrawn – the deployment of case managers from state government agencies has ended and mental health programs are finishing – local advocates have hit out at what they see as the abandoning of bushfire survivors.
Australia
About 800km north of Adelaide in the middle of the South Australia desert, an oil and gas company is working on a high-profile project to capture and store carbon dioxide. It’s claimed to be one of the world’s biggest carbon capture projects, and lauded by the federal government. But can it really live up to the hype and will it store enough CO2 to make a difference?
“Each and every” skilled shipbuilding worker affected by the federal government’s decision to scrap the existing $90bn submarine project and switch to nuclear-powered boats will have a job in the future, defence industry minister Melissa Price says.
Tasmania became the first state in Australia to open a casino in 1973, and since then, has become a place in which the gambling lobby’s influence on Australian politics is at its most bald-faced. Now, a bill about to head through Tasmania’s upper house has brought that influence into the open.
Australian-led research claiming moderate alcohol intake is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and death is not based on strong evidence, and fails to take into account recent research findings linking even moderate alcohol intake to cancer, experts say.
The world
The legitimacy of the Cop26 climate summit has been called into question by civil society participants who say restrictions on access to negotiations are unprecedented and unjust. A land defender from Pará, in the Brazilian Amazon, meanwhile said armed men attacked a forest community she defends while she was at the Cop26 talks in Glasgow.
Ghislaine Maxwell plans at her criminal trial to challenge prosecution claims that she “groomed” underage girls for the late financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse, and to offer testimony that her accusers might have faulty memories.
The mobile phones of six Palestinian human rights defenders who work for organisations that were recently – and controversially – accused by Israel of being terrorist groups were previously hacked by sophisticated spyware made by NSO Group, according to an investigation by Front Line Defenders (FLD), a Dublin-based human rights group.
Belarusian authorities have escorted an estimated 1,000 people, most of whom are from the Middle East, to the Polish border in an escalation of a deadly crisis that has already left people desperate to reach the EU trapped between borders and at least eight dead due to exposure.
Recommended reads
For many people, social distancing and lockdowns left them bereft of physical contact. Even before the pandemic, we were living through a “crisis of touch”. But for the pet-less, touch-starved, skin-hungry among us, physical contact is a welcome thing. In this article, touch experts explain why it is so essential and what we lost in its absence.
Black Lives Matter, bushfires and Covid raged around Maxine Beneba Clarke as she tapped into an ancestral tradition of using art to express the unthinkable. “I wrote poetry during the pandemic to process, to meditate on the world that was, to try and make some sense of things as a writer, and hopefully to offer some peace to at least one reader, somewhere, somehow,” the Melbourne author says.
History has largely ignored John Farrow. Despite the Marrickville-born film-maker carving out a staggering body of work – directing about 50 features for major American studios, in their upper echelons of talent, and working with a consortium of stars like John Wayne, and Bette Davis, Robert Mitchum, Vincent Price, Ray Milland and Donna Reed – it’s as if he barely even existed. But a new documentary examines Mia Farrow’s father, with a backstory stranger than fiction.
Listen
Booster shots and rapid antigen testing are part of the next phase of Australia’s pandemic response, but what role will they play, and how effective are they? Medical editor Melissa Davey explains to Laura Murphy-Oates.
Full Story is Guardian Australia’s daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.
Sport
For three decades, Kelly Slater has dominated Australian waves. But that may not happen again. The World Surf League has recently warned surfers that remaining unvaccinated ahead of the 2022 season would pose “significant challenges” and may see them prohibited from “entering certain countries if they are not fully vaccinated”.
Media roundup
The father of an Australian soldier murdered in Afghanistan has told a Senate inquiry that families were threatened and intimidated by the Defence Department, who warned them against speaking publicly about a 2012 attack, the ABC reports. The NSW government’s finances were thrown into chaos on Monday night, the Sydney Morning Herald reports, after claims that Treasury officials tried to cover up a report warning of a $10b hole in the state budget.
Coming up
A media conference with NSW voluntary assisted dying advocates.
And if you’ve read this far …
Enjoy looking at the environmental photographs of the year – thought-provoking images that highlight our impact and inspire us to live sustainably.
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