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U.S. and Mexico Reach Migration Deal; U.S. and Russia Blame Each Other for Dangerous Encounter; Trump Flips on Space Goals; Stark Warning for U.K. Coastal Resort; Women's World Cup. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired June 08, 2019 - 04:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[04:00:00]

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GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The U.S. and Mexico reach a deal. Trump tariffs on Mexico on hold for now.

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The U.S. president escalates his feud with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling her a disgrace to herself and her family. We'll get into that.

Also this hour --

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PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The people of Fairbourne could be Britain's first climate change refugees.

HOWELL (voice-over): A stark warning for one small village on the Welsh coast as we look at the impact of climate change on this World Oceans Day.

ALLEN (voice-over): We'll talk with Greenpeace this hour on why oceans matter to our existence.

Welcome to our viewers in the U.S. and around the world. I'm Natalie Allen.

HOWELL (voice-over): And I'm George Howell. NEWSROOM starts right now.

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HOWELL: 4:00 am on the U.S. East Coast.

There will be no U.S. tariffs on Mexico at least for now. Both sides reached a deal after Trump demanded that Mexico take a tougher approach to migrants crossing the U.S. border.

ALLEN: Trump announced in a tweet that negotiators reached a deal to avoid duty on all products imported from Mexico. He said the tariffs set to go into effect Monday had been indefinitely suspended. HOWELL: So on the deal, here are the highlights. Mexico says that it will take unprecedented steps to curb illegal migration. It will deploy its national guard, focusing in on the border with Guatemala and it will also take action to dismantle human trafficking network.

And asylum seekers entering the United States will be sent back to Mexico to wait while their asylum claims are processed. Both countries say that they will work to build a more prosperous and secure Central America to address the root cause of migration.

ALLEN: In a statement, U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo says that the U.S. looks forward to working with Mexico on its commitments. Negotiations between high level U.S. and Mexican officials began Wednesday and Friday's session lasted much longer than expected.

HOWELL: Our Michelle Kosinski reports from Washington.

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MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN SENIOR DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENT: Right, this was 12 long hours inside the State Department and this ended up being a real negotiation, a real give and take between the U.S. and Mexico, not just the Trump administration telling Mexico you need to do X, X and X or else it's the tariffs on Monday against all Mexican goods crossing the border.

Both sides had to give up something. What the U.S. got was a commitment from Mexico for better border enforcement and doing more to break up its elaborate trafficking networks. That, though, will take some time. That is not something that you see results on overnight although the better border enforcement with the Mexican national guard might drop the numbers somewhat of people crossing the border into the United States.

What the U.S. didn't get though was what it really wanted on the asylum issue. It wanted Mexico to agree to be declared legally what is known as a third safe country so that people passing through looking for asylum ultimately in United States would first have to apply for asylum in Mexico.

And then the U.S. could deport people who didn't get asylum in the U.S. easily back to Mexico. Mexico did not go for that. What the U.S. did get was for Mexico to say, OK, we'll take back the people who make it to the U.S. and are going through the asylum process. We'll take care of those people in Mexico while they wait the process out.

So the U.S. didn't fully get what it wanted on asylum but it did get something. What the U.S. will have to give up, though, is that it agreed to speed up the asylum process to contribute more to development programs, development assistance, not just in Central America but in Southern Mexico.

That is something that the Trump administration recently cut off. But Mexico insisted that the U.S. contribute to the root causes, the poverty and the violence, which is why people are trying to get to the United States in the fist place. So that is it. Case closed. Each side gave up some things and got some things and, no, there will not be tariffs on Mexico, at least for now -- Michelle Kosinski, CNN, Washington.

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HOWELL: Let's put it into focus now with James Boys, an author and political analyst and professor at Richmond The --

[04:05:00]

HOWELL: -- American International University in London.

Good to have you with us.

JAMES BOYS, AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: Good morning, George.

HOWELL: James, what is your read on this?

Because there has definitely been a give and take here, as Michelle just pointed out. The United States wanted everyone traveling through Mexico to claim asylum there first before being able to claim asylum in the U.S. That is not what they got.

Instead, the U.S. has agreed to expand its program to return migrants to Mexico while their asylum claims are being processed. So the U.S. didn't get exactly what it wanted but both sides did move here.

BOYS: Indeed. And, frankly, that is what you would expect in any international negotiation, isn't it, quite frankly, that both sides would come to a negotiating table with their own aspirations and come away with a little bit of what both sides want without one side dominating completely.

So I think both Mexico and the United States have got much to be happy with here. It is not an ideal solution and this isn't going to end the migration flows coming both in to Mexico and then further on into the United States.

But clearly I think this gives both sides something to cling on to, to claim some degree of victory, including the president.

HOWELL: And to push forward on your point, Mexico certainly under pressure to show results. That nation will put forward an enforcement surge, is what they are calling it, putting more national guard troops on the southern border. Both sides agree if there is no difference, the two will continue talks over the next 90 days and further action may be necessary.

So is this more of a bandage on a much bigger problem?

BOYS: Yes, I don't think there is any doubt about that. This hasn't solved the problem of migrationary flows through Central America and the impact that has as many of them make their way into the United States without paperwork. But very, very clearly this is something, which in the short term, is

enabling both sides to claim some degree of success. One of the great challenges, of course, is the threats to impose these tariffs and to impose harsher restrictions upon travel through Mexico into the United States has arguably caused a spike in those numbers.

The arrests in May were at a 12-year high quite frankly. And you have to ask whether that was in part because of an attempt to get in before these harsher penalties were introduced.

There were also reports that businesses were desperately trying to get their goods and services across the Mexican border at the back end of last week out of fear of these tariffs.

So Donald Trump's efforts to talk about a tariff war and imposing this increasing imposition of penalties upon Mexico has clearly had an effect and it's clearly something that I think that he is keeping in his back pocket that he can pull out again if indeed the negotiations don't go anywhere.

HOWELL: A little more on that point. The pressure from Republicans. The pressure from business leaders.

Do you think that that made a difference here with this president over tariffs?

The president maybe agreeing to settle here on this agreement now rather than implementing tariffs and then hoping for a better deal?

BOYS: I think the difficulty was that, as soon as tariffs had actually been introduced, they could only really have been withdrawn once you could start seeing some tangible benefit from that. And that was always going to be quite difficult, especially because the main people who were going to be hit in the short to medium term were likely to be the American public, as they saw an increase in the cost of everything that was imported from Mexico.

There is no doubt that business leaders, Republicans, Democrats, all seemed to be opposed to this idea of the imposition of tariffs. And when you consider just how close we are now getting to the 2020 election campaign, the very last thing that Donald Trump wants quite frankly is the cost of everything in the United States going up and that having an adverse effect on the economy, which, of course, is going to be his strong card, I think, moving in to his re-election campaign.

HOWELL: And Democrats watching that very closely. They are reacting, of course, to this deal. Here is what the Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer had to say about it. You can sense the sarcasm here.

"This is an historic night," he says. "@realDonaldTrump announced that he has cut a deal to greatly reduce or eliminate illegal immigration coming from Mexico and into the United States. Now that the problem is solved, I'm sure we won't be hearing any more about it in the future."

So that from Democrats there.

Look, does this allow the president to say that he accomplished his goal on immigration?

Should the flow of migrants dramatically drop and if so, what does that mean for him in 2020?

BOYS: Now what makes you think that Chuck Schumer is not being sincere there, George?

I think there's no doubt that Donald Trump does have a record of announcing deals and making it --

[04:10:00]

BOYS: -- sound like the problem has gone away. He did something similar with regard to ISIS in the Middle East, which caused many people to shake their heads, I'm sure there's still a problem there.

If, however, there is a reduction in migration flows into the United States, then that is certainly something that Donald Trump can point to. But let's not forget that stemming migration flows into the United States from Mexico is something that Democrats and Republicans agree upon.

And there is a lot of footage of Senator Schumer saying very similar things in past years to Donald Trump. I think where they disagree is perhaps the methods. But this should be a bipartisan issue and would be in the best interests of Democrat and Republican leaders to come together, to find a way to address the problem once and for all.

HOWELL: Somehow, I just have to say though, you could sense the sarcasm coming from that tweet, that one in particular. James Boys, we appreciate your time. Thank you.

BOYS: Thank you.

ALLEN: The U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more arrests of migrants at the border in May than at any other time in the last 13 years.

HOWELL: Our Gary Tuchman shows us what that means on the ground.

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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What we witnessed and what you're about to see was chaotic, depressing, emotional and sad.

We spent part of the afternoon with agents from U.S. Border Patrol in a van with them as they patrolled the border near El Paso, Texas. And what we saw in a 60-minute span was them apprehend eight different family units, 25 people, most of them children.

Every five or 10 minutes people were coming out of the Rio Grande. The first person we saw was Juana. She was emaciated, 25 years old, with a 6-year-old son and a 9-month-old baby on her back. They were all hungry. They were all thirsty. And they were all sick.

She said she was very poor and she had to come from Guatemala because she had no money left and no means. She said she had heard in her town that people had got to the United States as long as they brought children with them but they got here safely. She was apprehended.

We also met Sandy from Honduras. She didn't come with any children. She's about to have a child. She's 8.5 months pregnant and she came all the way from Honduras in three weeks, taking buses, trains and walking to get to the United States.

She says that her husband and brother were both killed by gang members, she was afraid it was going to happen to her, too, that she had to leave and had to come here.

And then we met a man who brought his two sons. And after he was apprehended by Border Patrol, he started crying.

(Speaking Spanish).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking Spanish).

TUCHMAN: Yes, "Tears of happiness," he says, that he made it with his son. He's very happy.

And we saw that from many of the people, crying out of a sense of relief, crying out of happiness when they arrived here and they realized that they were no longer on this journey.

Something very notable: the Rio Grande River is what separates Texas and the United States. The middle of the Rio Grande is the border. Here, it's relatively dry and people are able to walk across it on rocks.

When they walked across the river, they saw this huge 18-foot fence, which is about 1,000 feet to the north of the river. All of them said they thought they had to figure out a way to get over the fence. The Border Patrol said, no, you're already in the United States, you crossed the river. They were greatly relieved.

So this fence does nothing to stop people from entering the land of the United States.

One thing I can tell you is that these Border Patrol agents we worked with are very professional, they are very considerate, they are ambassadors to this country and they do a great job being ambassadors to these people, who've gone through an awful lot -- this is Gary Tuchman, CNN, in El Paso, Texas.

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ALLEN: The U.S. and Russia are accusing one another of reckless military behavior after two of their warships almost collided in the Pacific.

HOWELL: Take a look at this video. The U.S. Navy released the video of the encounter. It says Russia's destroyer made an unsafe maneuver that forced the U.S. ship to abruptly reverse its engines to avoid a collision.

ALLEN: But Russia disputes that, saying the United States was the one that instigated this. What they do agree on is the two vessels came within 130 feet or 30 meters of each other and perhaps much closer.

HOWELL: Friday's incident was not the first time these two militaries have had a close call this week.

ALLEN: CNN's Barbara Starr reports that these types of encounters are becoming increasingly common.

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BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: U.S. sailors kept the camera running as they recorded a Russian destroyer nearly colliding with their ship.

In the dramatic encounter, the Russian warship moves to within 50 to 100 feet of their cruiser. A U.S. aircraft overhead documents the Russian wake of their ship making a sudden high-speed turn coming up alongside the U.S. warship. All of this taking place in the Philippine Sea in international waters.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan says the U.S. will protest to Moscow.

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PATRICK SHANAHAN, ACTING DEFENSE SECRETARY: The Russian ship made the first reaction (ph) (INAUDIBLE) the safety of our men and women. There was a safety issue there.

But that behavior is unsafe and not professional. We'll have military-to-military conversations --

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SHANAHAN: -- with the Russians. And, of course, you know, to me safety is what's most important. It will not deter us to carry out our operations.

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STARR (voice-over): A collision was narrowly avoided when the American commander ordered the ship into full reverse at high speed.

ADM. JOHN KIRBY (RET.), CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: That is a very aggressive engine maneuver to conduct. To reverse the direction of those propellers to try to get the some into stop or to slow down as quickly as possible, it's a 10,000 ton cruiser, it's not going to stop on a dime.

STARR (voice-over): Despite the severity of the episode, Russian sailors are captured sunbathing on the deck of their ship. The Russian state-run news agency claim the U.S. instigated the encounter, the Pentagon increasingly worried Russian forces are getting reckless.

Tuesday a Russian fighter jet flew right in front of a Navy patrol aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea. And last month, United States Air Force fighters intercepted Russian aircraft off the coast of Alaska.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Militarily, what they are trying to do is challenge the United States at every particular point that they feel that they can get away with it.

STARR: Navy officials say the Russians have been shadowing the Americans at a safe distance for some time. And that convinces them that the Russians knew exactly what they were doing -- Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.

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HOWELL: President Trump is back in the United States and he has plenty to say about his Democratic opponents in Congress. A report from Capitol Hill is ahead for you.

ALLEN: Also, put people on the moon?

Been there, done that. Where President Trump now wants the U.S. to go. We'll have that coming up, too.

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ALLEN: President Trump returned Friday to American soil after his five-day trip to the U.K., France and Ireland. And waiting for him, growing calls from Democrats for an impeachment inquiry.

HOWELL: And his response to it all, name calling and insults. And at the top of his list, the Democratic lawmaker who has become his nemesis. Our Manu Raju has this.

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MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump continuing the assault he launched on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the graves of U.S. soldiers before him on the solemn 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, calling Pelosi a disgrace to herself and to her family.

TRUMP: I think she's a disgrace. I actually don't think she's a talented person. She's a nasty, vindictive, horrible person.

RAJU: The insults did not stop there.

TRUMP: I call her nervous Nancy. Nancy Pelosi is a disaster. OK? She's a disaster.

RAJU: Trump responding to Pelosi's private comments at a meeting in the Capitol this week, where, according to "Politico," she says she doesn't want to see Trump impeached, she wants him in prison.

TRUMP: And she made a statement. It was a horrible...

INGRAHAM: When you were overseas.

TRUMP: ... nasty, vicious statement while I'm overseas.

RAJU: But while she was in Normandy, Pelosi actually avoided criticizing the president publicly.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I don't talk about the president when we're out of the country.

RAJU: Behind the scenes, the debate over whether to impeach the president has taken a new turn. CNN has learned House Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler is pressing Pelosi to open up an impeachment inquiry, arguing it would bolster the Democrats' battles with the Trump administration in court.

In the same meeting where Pelosi said she wanted Trump in prison, Nadler said an impeachment inquiry would let his committee play the main role in investigating the president's conduct, freeing up other House panels to push forward on legislation instead.

But sources said he met resistance from Pelosi and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. The divide evident this week when Nadler would not say if he and Pelosi are on the same page over mounting an inquiry.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): When that decision has to be made, it will be made not by any one individual.

RAJU: Nadler is feeling growing pressure from members of his own committee and from 2020 candidates, amid White House defiance of their subpoena.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): There's a growing sentiment that it's an intolerable situation.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And I do believe that the Judiciary Committee in the House should go forward with an impeachment inquiry.

RAJU: And in the coming week, the House will take its first real step to try to enforce subpoenas that have so far not been complied with. The House will authorize the House Judiciary Committee to go to court to enforce a subpoena issued to Bill Barr, the attorney general, to turn over the unredacted Mueller report and the underlying evidence to that committee.

Also for Don McGahn to comply and turn over records the former White House counsel has not complied with, that subpoena under the instructions of the White House.

That same resolution that will be approved by the full House will authorize all committees to go to court directly, bypassing the full House in order to pursue any subpoenas that have not been complied with by this administration. Democrats say this is necessary. Republicans say this is overreach but it could lead to even more court fights than we've seen so far -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: President Trump has also been thinking about the United States' role in space.

ALLEN: He has been beefing up the space agency's budget but now he is changing his mind about its goals. Brian Stelter explains, now it is on to Mars.

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BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is a bit of a flip-flop from President Trump but it's a flip-flop that makes space geeks very happy. They want to see America or some other country land on Mars and that is what Trump is now emphasizing.

In a tweet on Friday, he is saying, "For all the money we are spending, NASA should not be talking about going to the moon. We did that 50 years ago. They should be focused on the much bigger things we're doing, including Mars (of which the moon is a part,) defense and science."

Now it's a little bit confusing there, Trump saying the moon is part of Mars. I think what he means is that there has been a lot of talk within NASA and among outside researchers about returning to the moon and then using that as a staging area or a pre-effort on the way to Mars. That is a popular view among experts. But I spoke with --

[04:25:00]

STELTER: -- Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins recently, who disagrees. He says the goal should be Mars, that should be the focus. In fact, he was quite critical of Trump when I spoke with him earlier this week.

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STELTER: Do you think President Trump is realistic when he talks about his vision for going to Mars?

MICHAEL COLLINS, ASTRONAUT: No, I think his vision is going back to the moon. I don't think that he is too much aware of Mars. Maybe he doesn't understand that there is a planet Mars.

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STELTER: Quite a jab there from a former astronaut toward President Trump. But now Trump is talking more about Mars. In this new tweet, he is emphasizing that is where he wants to see NASA focusing. The question, of course, as it often is with President Trump, is whether his tweets carry the weight and impact of policy or whether they're just one man's opinions, in this case one very powerful man's opinions.

We'll see if NASA end up commenting or making any changes as a result of the president's new statement, saying he wants to focus on Mars, not the moon -- Brian Stelter, CNN, New York.

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ALLEN: Much ahead here, the U.S. and Mexico reach a deal but is the plan workable on migration and is the agreement on asylum legal?

We talk with an immigration lawyer.

HOWELL: And a little later, France makes a statement on the pitch in the opening match of the Women's World Cup. We have the highlights for you.

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ALLEN: Welcome back. I'm Natalie Allen.

HOWELL: And I'm George Howell with the headlines we're following.

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ALLEN: Turning now to the U.S. tariffs on Mexico that have been put on hold now after a deal on migration has been reached. Mexico is to take unprecedented steps to increase enforcement to curb migration.

HOWELL: That's right, this deal comes during a surge of migrants crossing in to the United States. Officials say it puts a major strain on resources. Last month alone, more than 130,000 migrants arrived in the United States through the south.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection says that is a 32 percent increase from the previous month and the highest monthly for more than a decade.

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ALLEN: Joining me now to discuss this is Holly Cooper. She is the co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California in Davis.

Holly, thanks so much for being with us.

HOLLY COOPER, IMMIGRATION LAW CLINIC, UC DAVIS: Thank you, Natalie. ALLEN: First of all, the U.S. wanted Mexico to hear the asylum claims in Mexico. Instead they will still be heard in the U.S. But people will have to wait in Mexico.

Is that a reasonable compromise?

Is it workable?

COOPER: It is not. Currently what we're seeing is waiting times upward of November. So essentially with an immigrant who asks for political asylum, is forced to wait in a shelter or a halfway house in Mexico. And it is very difficult, as you can imagine, to cross the border, even just to find a lawyer that is willing to meet with individuals in Mexico, prepare their case in Mexico and then come back to the United States where their office is located.

So there is a lot of notice issues, a lot of immigrants are saying they are not getting notice of the hearings. The next court date for individuals recently apprehended will be in November. So you are talking about extraordinary obstacles that we're seeing.

ALLEN: So if that were to be worked out, would it be legal to have Mexico step in and work on this?

COOPER: There are two issues. Mexico has its own asylum procedures. And the U.S. has its procedures where many individuals are being required to wait in Mexico. Mexican asylum seekers are very deficient. Very small numbers of people actually win asylum in Mexico. They are completely understaffed. Very few asylum officers in Mexico.

And the grant rates are also extremely low. And most individuals are coming through Mexico to get to the United States to apply for asylum rather than apply in Mexico.

ALLEN: So that is one area. The other area, another front, is stopping people in the first place from getting on to the U.S. So Mexico is sending troops to its southern border to try to curtail the massive migrant flow we're seeing from Central America.

Is this a tenable solution?

COOPER: We don't believe it is. Part of what is at issue is most immigrants, when they are migrating from Central America to the United States, consider Mexico to be one of the most dangerous parts of the journey.

Part of the reason for that is the Mexican government itself. Oftentimes immigrants have told me countless stories about how they are being robbed by immigration authorities. They are held in cells for long periods of time, they are not given the option to even apply for political asylum. And they are summarily deported.

And this is the very reason that U.S. probably wants to use Mexico as an instrument in our enforcement, is because it can bypass many of the constitutional legal protections that we have in this country. So we don't believe it is a tenable solution and we think people should have the right under international law to seek asylum here in the United States.

ALLEN: So we see Mexico bending to the president, saying you have to do something. But what I hear you saying is an effort to engage Mexico in this unbelievable situation, that Mexico very likely will not be a viable partner here.

COOPER: They have long been a partner of the United States immigration policy. It is just that they will ratchet up that cooperation here. We don't believe that they are --

[04:35:00]

COOPER: -- a viable partner in part because of their enormous history of human rights abuse against migrants passing through Mexico.

ALLEN: So we're seeing the biggest number of asylum seekers in more than a decade. In the past, the U.S. has sent aid to the countries in Central America where these people are fleeing, to try to help these countries stabilize and stem violence.

What is happening that families are now coming by the thousands?

It is a problem at the border. They are overwhelmed. And Mexico is trying to help ameliorate this.

But what is happening that they are still coming?

COOPER: It depends on the country. In Guatemala, there is enormous food shortages. There is a real lack of infrastructure in those countries to stem the gang violence. In Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, as well, we are seeing enormous numbers of indigenous migrants who are suffering food shortages.

So a lot of people are coming here, seeking just, you know, protection in their lives. In addition just seeking the dignity of having access to food.

ALLEN: Immigration law expert Holly Cooper, we appreciate your insights and your expertise. Thank you for joining us.

COOPER: Thank you.

HOWELL: Still ahead, a warning on World Oceans Day. The people in a Welsh coastal village are being told they should get ready to lose their homes to the sea.

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HUW WILLIAMS, ENGINEER, GWYNEDD COUNCIL: Climate change is here. It's not something for the future.

ALLEN: And next we will also speak with the head of oceans for Greenpeace about what we all stand to lose as climate change makes the oceans rise. Stay with us.

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ALLEN: Welcome back.

America's top diplomat is again downplaying climate change.

HOWELL: Despite the evidence from scientists, despite the stronger storms, despite the melting glaciers, Mike Pompeo is calling it a long-standing trend. Here is what he told "The Washington Times."

Quote, "The climate has been changing a long time. There are always changes that take place."

ALLEN: But, he says, people can just adapt, quote, "Societies, we organize, we move to different places, we develop technology and innovation."

HOWELL: This is a month after Pompeo suggested melting sea ice is opening new opportunities for trade and travel.

But in a small village in Wales, climate change is turning the ocean into an existential threat.

ALLEN: As the seas rise, the people of Fairbourne are facing a tragic truth on this World Oceans Day, that their village could be underwater in a generation. CNN's Phil Black went to meet the villagers to see how they are preparing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLACK (voice-over): In this corner of North Wales, green and misty mountains slope dramatically toward the sea. The village of Fairbourne grew here on a flat stretch of marshland where the earth is low and wet, so low much of it lies only just above sea level.

BLACK: For the 100 or so years this village has existed, people here have been fighting to hold back the sea. Now even conservative sea level rise predictions suggest that battle will inevitably be lost, perhaps in the coming decades.

The people of Fairbourne could be Britain's first climate change refugees.

BLACK (voice-over): From the air, you see the village, hunkered down, hiding behind a bank of stone. When the sea gets angry, that largely natural barrier is all that protects people and their homes.

WILLIAMS: Sea level rise, as the energy hitting the juvial bank (ph), it becomes greater. BLACK (voice-over): Huw Williams, an engineer with the local council, says all available evidence indicates the barrier will eventually fail.

WILLIAMS: Sea level rise will be of such a magnitude that you cannot build your way out of it. Climate change is here. It's not something for the future.

BLACK (voice-over): Local authorities have reached an uncomfortable conclusion: all of this -- homes, shop, infrastructure, the community of around 1,000 people -- will one day be gone, claimed by the sea.

LISA GOODIER, PROJECT MANAGER, GWYNEDD COUNCIL: What we're doing now is planning for what we feel is realistically going to happen.

Lisa Goodier has the job of preparing Fairbourne and its people for what she descries as the village's decommissioning. She is working through a rough timeframe. From around 2045, Welsh authorities believe it won't be possible to maintain sufficient sea defenses and, soon after, it will be too dangerous for people to stay.

The estimates are based on data from local tidal gauges and the work of the U.N.'s climate change panel. They acknowledge it could all happen later or, as some scientists predict, much sooner.

GOODIER: We're telling people as early on as we can, we are actually giving them the opportunity to plan, we are actually allowing them to still have choice in what they want to do to a large degree.

BLACK (voice-over): Not everyone here appreciates the well-intended advance warning because property prices have been hit hard. Mortgages almost impossible to get.

STUART EVES, CHAIRMAN, FAIRBOURNE LOCAL COUNCIL: To turn around now and say we're going to destroy your village in 2045 or 2050 is wrong.

BLACK (voice-over): Stuart Eves runs the local camping ground and believes the estimates are imprecise and irresponsible, given the impact on people's lives.

BLACK: That is a long-term problem, so they have to start thinking about it now, don't they?

EVES: To a degree but if all your information is based on supposition and theory --

(CROSSTALK)

BLACK: Or science.

EVES: -- or science. But science has got to depend on facts. And if the facts aren't there, then they come up with suppositions, saying, we believe.

BLACK (voice-over): On Fairbourne's climate change front line, we meet Philip Hill. PHILIP HILL, FAIRBOURNE RESIDENT: It's going to happen sometime. Global warming is going to happen.

BLACK (voice-over): He and his family bought a seafront home, from where you can't see the sea, earlier this year. To him, the stone barrier still feels impregnable; the rising water, a distant threat.

HILL: If we have to move, then we do. But at the moment, I'd rather enjoy this lovely place for 20 or 30 years.

BLACK: And it is a lovely place.

HILL: Yes.

BLACK (voice-over): Fairbourne is engaged in a difficult conversation with many awkward questions.

What will happen to these people?

Where will they go?

Who pays for on it all?

The scientific consensus says this community will not be alone in confronting these imminent consequences of climate change -- Phil Black, CNN, Fairbourne, Wales.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: Let's talk now with the head of oceans for Greenpeace, Will McCallum is joining us from Devon, England.

[04:45:00]

ALLEN: Thank you so much for joining us on this World Oceans Day. This is the time we should be discussing this. We just saw Phil's story there.

How many other -- and we can see the complexities and the questions that people still have.

How many other Fairbournes could there be, as we see oceans rise?

WILL MCCALLUM, GREENPEACE: As we see oceans rise by potentially a meter, two meters by the end of the century, thousands of coastal communities will be affected. More than 3 billion people across the world depend on fish as their primary source of protein and many, many more depend on the oceans for their livelihoods.

So in 2019, it is quite a sobering affair after we've had U.N. climate change report and the U.N. biodiversity report. And we know that we have to do something about it.

(CROSSTALK) MCCALLUM: Frankly, thousands of -- sorry, go ahead.

ALLEN: I'm sorry; I was going to ask you, Greenpeace recently titled a story with this question, "What if we treated our oceans like they matter?" pointing out that they provide half of our oxygen and food for a billion people, not to mention we know the trash and the plastic that we are putting in our oceans that are choking our oceans, killing sea mammals.

So why don't we treat our oceans like they matter?

MCCALLUM: It is a very good question and I think a lot of it has been lack of understanding and what this shows us is that the science is now there. The jury is no longer out. We do know human activities are really causing these problems out to sea.

But as the scientists caught up with teaching us about the problems, it is also telling us about the solutions and there is a lot that we can do about it.

So this week, thousands of people have been gathering in capitals around the world, from to Bangkok to Argentina, from Norway to Indonesia, asking politicians to treat our oceans like they matter.

And one way they could do that is by negotiating for a strong global ocean stream (ph) that could actually protect more than a third of our oceans.

We know that in order to mitigate against these threats, in order to help stop the worst effects of climate change, we have to be looking at putting huge areas of the ocean off-limits to human activity, to let wildlife recover and to let the oceans do what they do best, which is soak up the carbon that we put into the atmosphere.

ALLEN: We know that Greenpeace wants to create sanctuaries to stop destructive policies, protect critical areas. Talk more about that and who or what is standing in the way.

MCCALLUM: So sanctuaries would be any area of ocean where humans aren't allowed to continue to extract the resources. So the science is very clear. When you stop taking stuff out of the ocean, it is actually amazing at recovering. It has fantastic rebound.

And so by doing that, you know, scientists estimate at least a third of the world's oceans need to be put off limits by 2030 if we want to stop the worst impacts of climate change, if we want to make sure people have food long into the future and if we want to make sure that our children have the same kind of healthy oceans that we have enjoyed.

So that is what it would do. And what is standing in the way, governments at the moment are halfway through negotiating a global ocean treaty at the U.N. That treaty would allow for these sanctuaries to be created. So it is vital over the next 18 months that governments really do show leadership on this issue and push for an ambitious global ocean treaty. ALLEN: Worldwide, we're now seeing the outrage over climate change grow. It is becoming an issue in the 2020 presidential election in the U.S. It's becoming mainstream.

Will that help your cause to protect oceans?

MCCALLUM: It will absolutely help our cause to protect oceans. What we're finding now, the issues of climate change and the decline in wildlife, they are very linked and that means if the problems are linked, the solutions are linked as well. So a call to solve the climate crisis is also a call to create ocean sanctuaries, to stop burning fossil fuels. You can't have one without the other.

What we do know is that these solutions, we don't have much time to implement them. There has to be action now. This isn't something that we can postpone any longer. As we saw with Fairbourne, there are communities are already facing the impacts.

ALLEN: Will McCallum on this World Oceans Day, we appreciate you joining us and the efforts at Greenpeace. Thank you.

MCCALLUM: Thank you for having me.

HOWELL: French football fans are definitely over the moon after the Women's World Cup kicks off in Paris with epic goals, overjoyed crowds and a big win by the host. The highlights from day one -- next.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:50:00]

STARTING POINT

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HOWELL: The Women's World Cup kicked off with an exciting victory for host France.

ALLEN: Our Amanda Davies is in Paris.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There is really as much hype about this French team's chances as they have about this being the biggest and best Women's World Cup to date.

And the early signs are neither are going to let us down. The host really did put on a performance that showed why they have lost just one game in the last two years. The Parc des Princes wasn't quite full but it wasn't far off and it was rocking. There was far more of a family, female, child-oriented crowd than many the men's equivalent in Russia last year.

And they were here for a party. The thunderclaps, the Mexican wave started early. But so did the ticker tape celebrations, as France took a lead through Eugenie Le Sommer inside 10 minutes and, from there, South Korea looked like coming back into it.

Wendie Renard was as immense as she's been for Lyon this season. Her two goals before the break really meaning the game was done by halftime. On balance, you'd actually think France would be pretty disappointed; they didn't score even more in the second 45.

The France coach, Corinne Diacre, had been trying to play down her side's chances before this one. She is very much going to struggle to do that now. And if the mood of the tournament opener is a sign of what is to come, we are in for a fun packed four weeks ahead -- Amanda Davies, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[04:55:00]

HOWELL: Day two of the Women's World Cup begins in a few hours.

Germany starts their Group B campaign in their kickoff against China in the city of Rennes, France.

HOWELL: And also in Eastern Russia, this story about a volcano long thought to be extinct, it has been showing signs of life and if it erupts, it could threaten nearby villages.

ALLEN: The Bolshaya Udina volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula was considered all but dead until 2017. But in just two months last year, scientists recorded 559 seismic events. The lead scientist says this volcano is now considered awake.

HOWELL: Wow. The area near the mountain is thinly populated and scientists say there is an equal chance that it could erupt at any time or dissipate its energy safely.

ALLEN: June is recognized around the world as LGBTQ pride month and to mark it, Wisconsin's governor ordered the rainbow flag to fly above the state capital for the entire month.

HOWELL: Democratic governor Tony Evers says it sends a message that all people are welcome in the state without fear of persecution, judgment or discrimination.

ALLEN: The news coming as State Department officials tell CNN the Trump administration denied multiple U.S. embassies permission to fly the rainbow banner from their flagpoles.

HOWELL: And we end the show with something that, if you are afraid of heights, you won't like this story.

ALLEN: It's an infinity pool and, there it is, it is targeted to be built in London with 360-degree views and a transparent floor and walls, all atop a 55-story skyscraper. Said to be a world first.

HOWELL: The designer says that rotating spiral staircase will rise from the pool floor to let people in and out and the automated system will keep the water from spilling to the street below. Construction to start next year.

ALLEN: Not for me.

All right, we've got our top stories just ahead.

HOWELL: Stay with us.