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UK Breaks Record For Highest Temperature As Europe Sizzles; Ukraine Lawmakers Vote To Sack Prosecutor General, Security Chief; Putin Heads To Tehran For Talks With Leaders Of Iran, Turkey; Sri Lanka Parliament To Choose President To Lead Past Crisis; Race To Replace Boris Johnson Down To Final 3 Contenders. Aired 1-2a ET
Aired July 20, 2022 - 01:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks for joining us. Coming up here on CNN Newsroom, it's never been this hot in Britain more than 40 degrees Celsius while in the U.S. more than 100 million people now under excessive heat warnings or heat advisories.
Escaping Kherson, Ukrainians risk or fleeing Russian occupation making a dangerous journey on foot, then vote, then bicycle, then car and bus.
And lawmakers in Sri Lanka will decide by a secret ballot in the coming hours, who will lead a country in the midst of an economic meltdown cracked by political division and paralyzed by protests.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN Newsroom with John Vause.
VAUSE: Temperatures across Europe continue to soar. Britain has never been this hot before with new heat records set in 34 sites across the country at London's Heathrow Airport a record high of 40 degrees Celsius or 104 Fahrenheit.
Fires erupted across the Capitol Tuesday, with more than 1,600 calls for firefighters about five times the usual number. Scotland also saw record temperatures almost 35 degrees. Across Europe 21 countries under heat alerts stretching as far east to Poland. For only the third time on record, temperatures in Paris exceeded 40 degrees Tuesday, or Belgium expanded its code red warning for extreme heat.
Germany recorded the hottest day of the year temperatures close to 40 degrees. And the World Meteorological Organization warns this heat emergency could last until the middle of next week and Europe should expect serious consequences.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETTERI TAALAS, SECRETARY-GENERAL, WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORG.: We expect to see increased deaths among the old and an already sick people, then we are expecting to see also major impacts on agriculture. During the previous heatwave in Europe, we lost the big parts of harvest and under the current situation will be already having this global food crisis because of war in Ukraine. This heatwave is going to have further negative impact on agricultural activities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: France fans are being used to try and cool livestock while the annual wheat harvest is now under threat from wildfires.
Over the past 10 days fires have torn through more than 40,000 hectares in three countries France, Spain and Portugal. CNN's Melissa Bell picks up the story.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN PARIS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A fire rages through a field in Spain as homes burned. In Greater London, a house is swallowed by wildfire. These just some of the many sweeping across Europe, where temperatures have soared and a heat emergency that stretches across the globe.
China's heat wave began last week with 51 cities including Beijing, now under the second highest heat alert level. European cities sweltered under new highs in what is the continents second heatwave of the summer, now entering its second week, Ireland seeing its hottest day in a century.
In the United Kingdom temperatures reached 104 degrees. A first with London's fire brigade declaring a major incident on Tuesday because of a quote huge surge in fires across the Capitol.
I think we just have to adapt. Our homes have to change, our way of life us changing (INAUDIBLE).
BELL (on camera): Here in France, the temperatures reached 105 degrees difficult enough for Paris, which is not accustomed to such extreme temperatures. But down in the southwest of France, the impact has been far more devastating.
The French president is do down by those wildfires that have been spreading for several days under pressure from local officials who accused him of not having done enough soon enough.
(voice-over): Down near Bordeaux wildfires have continued to spread burning through still more of the parched pine forests that run all the way down to Spain. Already tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes in southern Europe.
The extreme heat causing fires in Texas and causing the plains to swelter all the way up to the Dakotas. Temperatures as high as 110 feeling as high as 115. Experts say that climate change can no longer be ignored.
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DAVID WALLACE-WELLS, AUTHOR, "THE UNINHABITABLE EARTH": We're talking about weather events that we probably would have expected to see a decade or two down the line. But what's more striking than that, I think is how poorly we're preparing and adapting because we knew these temperatures were coming.
BELL: For many people across the northern hemisphere this Tuesday brought those temperatures and those weather events into far sharper focus. Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
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VAUSE: Let's get the latest on the forecast. Our meteorologist Pedram Javaheri is tracking those temperatures. So there is at least relief in sight. Some relief.
PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Some relief could be short term for some folks across Western Europe here, John. And just the past hour seeing those temperatures in London dropped down to 19 degrees, it was 20 degrees this time last hours. So again, a little bit of marine influence here that'll allow those temperatures to come back down closer to seasonal averages for the next couple of days.
But look at the incredible run of temperatures in the past 24 hours of the top 10 hottest temperatures the UK has ever observed on its modern records. All of them occurred on yesterday. So incredible run here with 40 plus degrees a few times and of course 40 had never been observed up until yesterday afternoon. And you'll notice eight of them, eight observation locations came in with that number.
And as far as records are concerned across not only the UK, the warmest all time now happening yesterday. But when it comes to France, when it comes to Spain, these records for their hottest temperatures have also occurred in the past three years. And in France, it was this time last year where they saw their hottest weather all time as well.
But the fire danger really excessive now across portions of Europe. Notice of course, as you work away a little farther towards the south, at the top of the charts at the extreme level of concern, but the darker shades of orange on it, the yellow there that is the more moderate to high level of concern with very limited coverage of areas of low levels of concern when it comes to fire activity potential in the coming weeks.
But when it comes to afternoon highs, how about we'll aim for 24 degrees in Paris, it's 41 degrees this time, it's the afternoon hours of yesterday. Well, London's 40 degrees be expected to drop off to 26 by this afternoon. So again, the impacts of the storm coming in here bringing it some cloud cover, some rainfall and every one of those raindrops that takes evaporative cooling to another level as brings those temperatures down a notch as well.
So that'll be in place here for Wednesday afternoon. But we do expect some severe weather as a result of these storms, possibly a level two there across southern areas of France, where some of these storms can have large hail and some severe wind gusts associated with them.
Notice, here's the trend of temperatures look for areas that are yellow on and to say green, that's where the cooler weather is expected. But notice across the south, not much change, still watching excessive heat here going into this weekend. And really important to note, when it comes to temperatures rising across our planet, look at this data set here that shows you since around the year 2000 to modern times, the incredible spike in the parts per million, which is the unit of measure there for carbon dioxide at all time values now are right in line with the rising temperatures.
Of course, heat trapping these greenhouse gases that are trapping the heat here are kind of corresponding with these temperatures. And that's really one of the many datasets that we look at when it comes to see if the fingerprints of climate change are on these events, and certainly is for this particular setup. And you'll notice across the United States, just about everyone also tapping into significant heat with over 110 million Americans, which is about one in three Americans dealing with temps that are as hot as 45. John.
VAUSE: Yes, especially here on the south. Pedram, thank you. Appreciate it.
Joining us from Los Angeles is Emily Atkin, climate expert and author of the newsletter HEATED, the appropriately titled newsletter HEATED. Emily, thanks for being with us.
EMILY ATKIN, CLIMATE EXPERT: Thank you for having me.
VAUSE: OK, so scientists have been warning for years about what is happening now across Europe. A senior executive with ExxonMobil was talking to an industry group in November last year, talking about the financial gains to be made from climate change, also playing down the risks to the planet. Here he is.
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ERIK OSWALD, VP AND REGISTERED LOBBYST FOR EXXON: The way I look at it as a scientist is also need to think about it is there a risk? Yes, there's risk. Is it catastrophic, inevitable risk? Not in my mind. But there's risk.
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VAUSE: This is a company whose own internal research going back to the early 1980s warned of precisely what we are now seeing but the point is here, despite the fact this crisis is unfolding almost daily before our eyes, there is still a reluctance it within industry or within government to do everything possible to reverse course. Why?
ATKIN: Well, I think you have to go back to the near mention that climate change is caused by fossil fuels. I mean, to do something about climate change, you have to acknowledge that climate change is caused by fossil fuels, and there's been a really long campaign of 50- year campaign to deny that that's happening as we just saw in that clip. Most people don't understand that climate change is not something that is just happening to us. It is something that is being done to us. It's not just human caused emissions, even -- I think I even heard on this on CNN broadcast the mention that it's human caused emissions, its fossil fuel caused emissions.
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Every single year, fossil fuels are responsible for up to 89 percent of carbon emissions. So I think really it starts with a reluctance all around not just from fossil fuel company executives, but from media, from institutions like the IPCC. Its draft report didn't mention the word fossil fuels. We have to come to grips with reality before we can deal with it.
VAUSE: Speaking of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, their latest report, pointed out that there is still this small window to turn things around. Now back in April, it said, if we could see carbon emissions peak by 2025, we could avoid the worst. But without a strengthening of policies beyond those that are implemented by the end of 2020, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to rise beyond 2025 leading to immediate global warming of 3.2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. If we hit 3.2 degrees Celsius, that's right. Game over for humanity, right?
ATKIN: It's that game over for humanity at all. But it's a really awful situation for the poorest and most non-white people among us, to be honest, I mean, you can see today with these heat waves, I mean, countries that are not prepared to adapt to heat, this is a deadly situation.
And so yes, sure, wealthy countries, I'm sure we'll be able to implement some measures to protect the most well off people but that's not the majority of people in the world. There was a study that came out last year showing that should climate change, continue unabated, that heat related deaths, will match the same number of deaths as all infectious diseases combined throughout the world.
In fact, game over for humanity. I don't think any situation is game over for humanity. But for every degree we get harder, the more people are going to suffer. And it won't be the wealthy white people.
VAUSE: Yes. It does seem in many ways that, you know, it will be a whole different society, a whole different way we live on this planet if we hit 3.2 degrees. But one of the reasons why we're in this crisis in the first place, is because a system which allows a privileged few to continue to access.
In recent days, you know, celebrities have been caught out on social media for the use of private jets, like Kylie Jenner use her private jet to fly from Camarillo to Van Nuys, California three-minute flight, usually about a 40 minute drive. Kim Kardashian landed in Cannes in Northern Australia, after just 15 minutes in the air, Drake, six minutes in the air flying from Hamilton to Toronto and Canada drive which will take less than an hour. This list goes on and on and on. But these short flights are among the biggest producers of carbon emissions. And they just seem to symbolize the whole let them eat cake attitude that some of the world's richest have, you know, almost weekly seems a new record set for extreme weather, be it temperatures, and intensity or frequency of floods and hurricanes, that kind of thing. So, there's this overwhelming public sentiment to do something this need to act?
ATKIN: Well, it's so funny you mentioned that because I spent literally my entire day going through all of those flight logs to see just how many were taken in the last couple of months that were very small. And you're in your ad, you know, three minutes, five minutes. And you're absolutely right.
And I think really what the problem is that excessive consumption is still seen as not only socially acceptable, but something to aspire to, as you'll see, like Kylie Jenner will post about her private jet. And, you know, Travis Scott's private jet and be like your jet or mine. So that's not their own ashamed of the fact that they're emitting completely needless amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
And that's really a cultural thing that people can shift on a day to day basis. I know sometimes the climate crisis seems like a really hopeless thing that how can anything I do solve it. We are we create the culture. We don't have to have a culture that glorifies excessive consumption, perhaps you take the flight, but are you really going to brag about it? That's where we're at right now. There's a huge disconnect from celebrity and reality. And we also need to bridge that gap as well.
VAUSE: It seems to me that there needs to be an element of shame, at least I guess, when it comes to this sort of excessive consumption at this particular point in time, as opposed to vitalizing it and I guess that's one thing which we can do.
ATKIN: I mean, unless you don't have any shame for contributing to something that kills poor people. I mean, you don't need to have an element of shame, but I think at that point, you're a sociopath. So which one is it?
VAUSE: Good point to finish on. Emily, thank you so much. It was good to have you with us.
Grueling battle grinds on in eastern Ukraine as Russian forces wrap up efforts to seize complete control of Donetsk. Russian or Ukrainian officials rather say at least one person was killed Tuesday and the Russian missile attack on the city Kramatorsk.
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Strikes also reported in Sloviansk, a key target in Russia's push to capture more cities in the next region and take control of the entire Donbas. Areas to the west coming under attack as well. In the Odesa region, officials say at least six people were wounded in an overnight attack, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling this strike to clear evidence of Russian terrorism. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDNET (through translator): Every day the occupiers give new reasons for recognizing Russia as a terrorist state. Last night, they carried out a missile attack on a village in the Odesa region seven sea-based caliber missiles against an ordinary village.
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VAUSE: In nearby Mykolaiv, their mayor urging residents to leave as soon as possible. He says the city is being shelled every day, and air defenses are being overwhelmed. Meantime, the U.S. warned on Tuesday, Russia is likely to planning to annexation attempts to the occupied southern eastern regions, following the same playbook used in Crimea in 2014.
In Kyiv a major government shakeup is sending shockwaves through the capital. Ukraine's parliament has officially voted to remove the top prosecutor as well as the head of Ukraine security service. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked for their dismissal saying they failed to purge traitors within their ranks. But long after Tuesday's vote, the former prosecutor general spoke to CNN's Nic Robertson.
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, the first big political firings by President Zelenskyy since the war began, his security chief bowing out saying that he'd made some mistakes, that he was happy with his track record. The Prosecutor General also voted out by the Parliament stepping down, saying she wasn't quite sure why the President was letting her go. But she was part of his team and wasn't about to criticize him. I sat down and talk to her.
Why were you fired?
IRYNA VENEDIKTOVA, FORMER UKRAINIAN PROSECUTOR GENERAL: My personal opinion, because it is a now time for Prosecutor General maybe was awesome (ph) views.
ROBERTSON: Proposed a tactic to remove you when you're being successful.
VENEDIKTOVA: No, situation in Ukraine, we invoke and who will listen to me even better than my husband, maybe it will be our enemies Russian Federation.
ROBERTSON: So you don't want to criticize the President for his choices because this will be used by Russia/
VENEDIKTOVA: I could not criticize President. I was part of his team.
ROBERTSON: So let me ask you about what the President had said. He said that there were people who were treasonous and collaborators within your department. VENEDIKTOVA: Actually, his pug (ph) that he saw these people in the system, collaboration is it's only people who worked in occupied territory.
ROBERTSON: It sounds like what you're saying collaboration and treason problem is, is tiny and miniscule. And you've been very effective against it. If you were doing so well there, then what is the real justification?
VENEDIKTOVA: You know that my chair it is political chair. It is a real politic in Ukraine. And this is my answer.
ROBERTSON: Real politic.
VENEDIKTOVA: Real politic. Yes.
ROBERTSON: So what are the challenges now for the prosecutor coming in, particularly with the war crimes?
VENEDIKTOVA: We have more than 23,000 cases only about war crimes and crimes, which are connected with aggression. It means that our prosecutors today should do exactly what they have done before. I appreciate very much for prosecutors and investigators in this team, experts from international society who have done their job on the ground.
ROBERTSON: Should they now look at working with the Prosecutor General's office in Ukraine in a different light, knowing that this is a political position?
VENEDIKTOVA: I asked via (INAUDIBLE), via offices please send us your professionals more and more, because it's very important for us. I hope that International Criminal Court will be successful. And I hope that President Zelenskyy will do everything to build these strong institutions.
ROBERTSON: And will your replacement as Prosecutor General be strong enough to help him do that properly?
VENEDIKTOVA: We'll see.
ROBERTSON: That issue of not wanting to give Russia any opportunity to see political divisions here to exploit those divisions and to try to create weakness on the battlefield. That's a very live issue here. No one wants to give Russia that opportunity. So despite the changes, no criticism of President Zelenskyy. Nic Robertson, CNN, Kyiv, Ukraine.
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VAUSE: He's all smiles and handshakes for the leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran following talks in Tehran. Crucially, they're making progress they want to deal with a Ukrainian grain exports currently under Russian naval blockade. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh has more now from Istanbul.
[01:20:00] (BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The trilateral meeting between Russia, Turkey and Iran wrapped up on Tuesday Tehran. Those talks between the three countries very much focused on Syria, Turkey for weeks has been saying that it wants to launch a new military offensive in northern Syria to deal with what it describes as a national security threat. And that is the Syrian Kurdish forces along its border.
But to carry out this operation, Turkey would need to get the green light really from Russia and from Iran, those two key powers also involved in the conflict in Syria. At this point, it's unclear if Turkey got this go ahead, this green light from Russia and Iran.
So we will have to wait and see what the outcome of these talks behind closed doors may have been how that's going to play out on the ground in Syria, because the positions of both Russia and Iran have been clear publicly saying that they oppose any sort of military intervention by Turkey.
The Iranian Iran Supreme Leader warning that this would be destabilizing not just for Turkey for Syria, but for the entire region.
Another significant meeting, of course, taking place was the bilateral between presidents Erdogan and Putin the first face-to-face meeting between these two leaders since Russia's invasion of Ukraine and perhaps the kind of photo op that President Putin needed standing there next to the one of the leaders of a key NATO member.
President Putin appearing relaxed, all smiles getting a warm welcome from President Erdogan. But it is also that good working relationship between these two presidents that has enabled to Turkey to try and take on this role of mediator between Russia and Ukraine, President Putin and Erdogan saying that significant progress has been made on their talks on food security on the attempts to try and establish a grain corridor in the Black Sea for the export of Ukrainian grain.
Now we know that progress has been made. We heard that last week following talks that took place here in Istanbul between Russian, Ukrainian delegations and the United Nations and Turkey. The UN Secretary General coming out of those commenting on these talks last week described them as a ray of hope saying that significant and a critical step forward in the right direction.
And we are expecting a second round of talks to take place here in Turkey this week. And perhaps the signing of a final agreement that would pave the way for this grain corridor for Ukrainian grain exports to the world. Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Istanbul.
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VAUSE: Sri Lankan's Parliament now voting for a new president has the country reels under economic turmoil. CNN's Will Ripley covering this critical vote a live report when we come back. Later this hour, Northern Italy's worst drought in decades is killing crops and threatening the region's clean water supply. Farmers say their losses are piling up.
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VAUSE: Welcome back, you're watching CNN Newsroom. These are live images from Sri Lanka from Colombia. Right now it is 10:55 in the morning, and parliament is now in the process of holding a secret ballot to elect a new president.
Three candidates have come forward to contest this election. There's voting is underway right now. Whoever does win will become leader of a country which has any full flow and economic meltdown, suffering from shortages of basic necessities like fuel, food, medical supplies, you name it. They don't have it. The country is basically bankrupt.
CNN's Will Ripley following developments now he joins us live. So Will, what is incredible to think of is that this process, there's what, something just over 220 members of parliament, who will decide who gets this incredible power, this executive presidency to rule this country for the next two and a half years.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and this is a parliament in which, you know, I visited the parliament building the other day, John, it is absolutely gorgeous. It sits on its own island in the middle of Colombo. So you pass all the security gates and all these checkpoints. And then you approach this island surrounded by peaceful water. And in many ways, it's kind of symbolic of what many called the disconnect between the parliament and the people on the streets who are waiting in queues six days, eight days, to get fuel for their car.
You know, when you walk into, you know, not a rich person's grocery store, which of course, those are fully stocked, but you go to like the kind of store in the neighborhood where people actually live. And the shelves are like half empty or less than half empty, and you just don't have supplies. And yet you have these, you know, these political and ruling class in that room right now secretly deciding between a six-term prime minister who was the acting president who worked for the former president, you know, who has a specialty in economics, and claims that he can be the one to turn the economy around and get fuel out to the gas stations and get medicine to the hospitals.
Then you've got this other guy that used to be a tabloid journalist, turned politician, who was a very close ally with the former president until the economic crisis. And then he completely flipped on him. And now he's just gone after him. And as a result has all this opposition support, and it's a secret ballot.
So really, there's not a whole lot of -- there's not a whole lot of way to know which way it's going to shake out. And not a whole lot of accountability either. And yet, whoever emerges because they have three candidates, but it's really those two front runners. Is it the former tabloid guy, or is it the six-time prime minister that protesters said if he gets reelected, there could be anarchy (INAUDIBLE) federation.
This is the guy whose house they set on fire. They demanded his resignation. He said he'd resigned. But now, he could potentially just be a matter of hours away from taking over the presidency for the next two and a half years or you have this other guy, kind of an unknown member of parliament in terms of what is he going to do? He actually voted in favor of that executive presidency, to give more power to the president. That was the 20th amendment. This other the Prime Minister says he wants to get more power to the parliament. So what are we going to have? John, it's really anyone's guess.
VAUSE: It really isn't our system when you think about the demands coming from the protesters and becoming from for weeks and weeks and weeks now have more representation. A system that is more representative of the will of the people that they want the President, they want, you know, their needs be met, their demands to be heard. And yet we have the secret ballot and an old elite established person met politician is the one who's likely to take power. It does seem kind of a strange way of doing things.
But Will in Colombo, you know, you'll be there for when those results come in. And we'll have you live with us. Thank you.
And then there were three, the race to select the next British Prime Minister now in full swing with a fifth round of voting planned in the coming hours. Three candidates vying to succeed Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak is leading the pack followed by Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss.
Meantime, Johnson shared his final Cabinet meeting Tuesday before he stands down as prime minister after a series of scandals. MPs will continue voting until there are just two candidates left. After that, the rank and file, the card carrying members of the conservative party that's about 200,000 people will vote for Johnson successor as party leader, and by default, the next prime minister of Great Britain.
Still to come, more on the skyrocketing temperatures across the globe. What this means for the climate crisis, and it's not good (INAUDIBLE).
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VAUSE: Welcome back everybody. I'm John Vause. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
More now on our top story this hour. The heat wave sweeping across the globe with record temperatures in Europe, the United States and parts of Asia.
Wildfires are burning in a number of European countries and climate scientists warn extreme temperatures are now the new normal.
CNN's Sara Sidner has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: It is surreal. Now the fire is out but the pictures that you are seeing from just outside of London look like something that you would see from infamous fires that we see every year in the summer in California.
Fire and stratospheric temperatures scorching millions around the world. The United Kingdom has never been this hot, ever. Parts of Britain hit 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a record.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've never had this kind of heat so why would we be prepared.
SIDNER: In a place where no one and nothing is acclimated to this kind of heat, it is a true danger to people and infrastructure alike.
Climate scientists say this is not normal, not by a long shot. The new normal will be that it gets exponentially hotter for longer.
MYLES ALLEN, PROFESSOR OF GEOSYSTEM SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD: Well, as long as we keep dumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the world will continue to warm and as I say, it's warming at around a quarter of a degree for decades.
SIDNER: In London at Luton Airport, a runway buckled under the oppressive heat, stopping flights. But it's since been repaired.
Fear over buckling rail lines, one of the main modes of transportation in the country led authorities to paint as many as they could with a reflective substance to repel the heat. But for safety, trains at one of the biggest stations in London were stopped for hours.
Trains that were running were told to slow their speed to lessen the friction on the boiling hot tracks.
Less than 1 percent of the homes in the country have air conditioning. Inside temperatures are like being inside an oven in this heat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean the world is burning and we are doing nothing about it. We're just consuming, the industries running and nobody is doing anything about the planet.
SIDNER: The land is literally burning as London firefighters face one of the toughest days ever. The heat continues to fuel fires in France, Spain and Greece. Hundreds of deaths are being attributed to the heat as well.
Europe is looking a lot like the United States where more than 100 million people are under heat advisories from Texas to Kentucky.
Fires are burning thousands of acres in Texas and Oklahoma where temperatures have reached over 110 degrees. And there is no immediate end in sight as millions try to find relief.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we just have to adapt (INAUDIBLE), our homes to sustain our way of life.
[01:34:48]
SIDNER: And that is easier said than done. You know, we should mention that in Arizona, a temperature of 100 or 104 degrees is like a cool summer day there. But here in the U.K. it is truly dangerous with the government telling people not to go anywhere and not to do anything until the heat subsides.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Sara Sidner, thank you for that report.
Now as the demand for electricity surges amid the historic heat wave, Europe is bracing for a potential full-bore energy crisis later this year. The immediate concern though is Nord Stream I, the crucial gas pipeline supplying Russian natural gas to Germany and beyond. That's due to restart operations on Thursday after 10 days of routine maintenance.
But amid concerns Russia might not resume the supply, a number of European countries have struck deals with energy producers in the Middle East and North Africa.
With more on this CNN European affairs commentator Dominic Thomas joins us now live from Berlin. It's good to see you. Thanks for getting up early.
DOMINIC THOMAS, CNN EUROPEAN AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: Oh thank you, John. Yes. It's already very warm.
VAUSE: I could tell, yes. The temperatures are rising and so do your concerns.
There's a sudden surge in demand for energy which is caused by the soaring temperatures. There's also the combined with this reduction in supply of Russian oil and natural gas. This seems to be at least in the short term, a kind of a one-two punch in efforts to reduce carbon emission.
So here's reporting from Bloomberg. Germany is delaying the retirement of some coal and oil fired power plants. The Dutch are lifting a cap on power from coal. Austria reviving a shuttered coal power station. France preparing a coal plant as a reserve for winter. Several countries also investing in terminals to import LNG, liquid natural gas, and pipelines to connect them to existing networks. Infrastructure that will last decades.
Right now, it looks like a set of Chinese finger trap, it seems a short term solution, we're not making climate change even worse. So this is a real conundrum for policy makers right now. What should I do that's not going to make things worse in the future?
THOMAS: Yes. Well, I think you're absolutely right, John. I mean this is really the paradox of the situation is that all of these measures are just simply aimed at addressing some very serious short term issues and concerns are really about survivability in Europe right now. But all of them have long-term implications and what we're talking about here is the specific context of Europe. And Europe in the summer that these issues and questions of course will be compounded as we head into the winter months.
And the authorities are forced to draw on, you know, on very similar and ranges of measures in order to address these problems, John.
VAUSE: -- week, you know, the headlines are saying France signs energy deal with U.A.E. all to wean off Russian imports of natural gas, that kind of stuff. We also have a report from the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi traveled to Algeria on Monday to draw up an agreement to produce gas imports like 20 percent.
Likewise the E.U. Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen went to Azerbaijan on Monday to sign a deal to increase gas flow.
Are these new deals enough to compensate for the loss of Russian energy supplies? And if not, what sort of hard choices are not awaiting Europeans?
THOMAS: Yes. Well, that's really is, you know, just such a great -- a great question John. I mean really what we're seeing here is a sort of total attempt to sort of think about and recalibrating this whole situation. So what you describe there is a kind of global scramble for energy sources to sort of to keep the current system going. And I think the short term, although of course, there are all the indicators of a rising inflation, of looming recession and so on. Sort term, they're able to address and to meet those particular needs which, of course, is just simply kicking the ball further down the road in terms of what they have to do.
I think that the real challenge here, the real challenge that face these leaders is a question of leadership. It's about being honest with the people and explaining to them that there are hard times coming ahead. And attempting to enlist people in finding common solutions to these particular problems.
They're not simply about finding more of the same energy sources around the planet but in dramatically rethinking and recalibration -- recalibrating the lifestyle that they use. And unless leaders are able to do that, and that's a tall order of course, in the short term, I don't see la way out of this particular challenge, John.
VAUSE: You mentioned that, you know, in the short term, you know, there is the capacity to do this. But overall, the big question is how much capacity do governments have right now especially after spending, you know, billions event trillions of dollars during the pandemic.
How much fiscal room do they have, you know, to soften the pain from these soaring energy prices?
THOMAS: Yes. Well, what we're starting to see is a shift in discourse and also a shift in the influence or the return once again of kind of environmental issues. So the fact that you have a German government in coalition with the
Greens, the fact that the opposition, if we can describe it that way, in France is shaped around environmental issues.
[01:39:52]
THOMAS: And this has driven the French president who let's not forget when he was initially elected way back in 2017 had talked about making the planet great again has recently talked about the need for energy and sobriety.
So we've seen a number of European countries, for example, incentivize people to use public transportation with very cheap deals and penalize the use of automobiles and encouraging people to work from home and so on. And of course, some of these are mitigating or softening the solutions.
But the reality is that long-term problems confront people and that means solutions need to be looked at in the short term.
And I think that there is back to the sort of the issue of leadership again a real opportunity here to have a conversation with people who can simply in the face of denialism of climate skeptics the realities on the ground are such that I think that the climate, to use that word, is conducive to enlisting people and making meaningful solutions and change -- finding meaningful solutions and making real changes to the way in which they address these problems in society.
And I think that that's the real challenge ahead for the leadership, John.
VAUSE: Angela Merkel, where are you when we need you.
Dominic Thomas, thank you sir.
THOMAS: Thank you.
VAUSE: Take care. Thank you, Dom.
Parts of Italy are being asked to ration water amid the worst drought in decades. At least five northern regions are under state of emergency. The water shortage is forcing farmers and officials doing some tough choices on where to find new supply.
CNN's Ben Wedeman has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Land once lush and productive is drying up. In the delta of Italy's once mighty River Po, drought has struck. "70 percent of the crop is gone," Frederica Vitali (ph) tells me. "If it doesn't rain, you can see the plants are burning up."
But this year the rains didn't come. It's Italy's worst drought in 70 years. Her soya crop is all but gone. The drought has impacted a third of Italy's agriculture.
It didn't rain much during the winter or the spring but Italy is going through an unprecedented heat wave. Those combined to create the perfect storm for Italian agriculture.
Five major food producing Italian regions have declared a drought emergency.
Three generations of Antonio Betsi's family have cultivated rice.
"We've never seen a drought like this," he says.
Climate change here isn't a myth. It's reality.
"In the last 10 years," Antonio says the area planted with rice is gone almost 50 percent as a result of drought.
Close to the sea, there is water everywhere but not a drop to drink.
In normal times, this is where the salt water reached in this river, about 3 miles from the Adriatic but now because of the drought, because of the low level of fresh water in the River Po. The salt water reaches about 18 miles inland and that is having a disastrous effect on crop.
Rodolfo Laurenti works for the local water authority which closely monitors the flow and salinity of water in the Po delta.
"The moment of real climate crisis," he says "is 2022."
To ensure adequate drinking water one local authority has resorted to renting expensive mobile desalination plant.
"Climate change means we have to be ready for emergencies like this," says director Monica Monte.
Elsewhere the little fresh river water still available is used to save at least a portion of the rice crop.
The climate scientist Ramona Magno (ph) warns, it's too little and --
RAMONA MAGNO, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: It's too late. We owe all what we can do now is try to reduce losses.
WEDEMAN: And as this drought goes on, the losses will only mount.
Ben Wedeman, CNN -- in the Po River delta, Italy
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Well, from extreme drought in Europe to widespread flooding in India. The Western state of Gujarat has seen days of constant rainfall, causing widespread flooding. A number of rivers have burst their banks leading to a loss of live while crops and homes have been washed away.
[01:44:56]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
A.R. GAJERA, NAVSARI DISTRICT AGRICULTURE OFFICER: Navsari went through multiple floods. Three rivers have major roles to play in this. They're Daperna (ph), Taveri (ph) and Ambika (ph).
The river banks were effective because of these rivers. In Navsari district alone, at least 7,000 hectares of land were affective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Parts of Madawaska state also under water. Rescue workers using boats to locate residents and being tried to zoom to safety in the muddy flood waters.
Still to come here on CNN NEWSROOOM. The U.S. release its annual report on global human trafficking. The number countries with the motive, Russia's war on Ukraine as Washington says is the number issue making everybody thing work.
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VAUSE: Well that didn't last long, a deal between protesters in Panama and the government are trying to address the rising inflation is broken in last than a day. Demonstrators back on the streets.
More now on this growing crisis from CNN's Patrick Oppmann.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN: For over two weeks anti government protests have paralyzed Panama, a country that up until now has been a rare example in recent decades, in Latin America.
Protesters are demanding the rising food and fuel prices and come back official corruption.
"They have to lower the price of food essentials, of gasoline, of everything, says this protester while the protests have been largely peaceful, demonstrators have closed off roads and high ways. Keeping food from coming into cities and bringing the economy to a near @Standstill still. In response, Panama's president announced his government would lower
the price of basic food items and slash government spending.
"I understand the unhappiness of the (INAUDIBLE)" he says, "for the situation we are living caused by the pandemic and the consequences of the war in Ukraine."
On Sunday it appeared the government and some protest organizers had reached a deal to lift the road blocks after the country's vice president agreed to subsidize the cost of gasoline.
But the deal fell apart within hours after demonstrators who had not been at the negotiating table said the government's concession weren't enough and the protest would continue.
"We are unaware of any agreement that was reached", the protest leader says. "The irresponsibility of the government in their maneuver to find someone to sign in an agreement with them without all the participants in the fight is unacceptable."
Panama had just been emerging from the economic impact of the pandemic when the country which uses the U.S. dollar was hit by rising inflation and the impacts of the war in Ukraine.
So far operations in the Panama Canal have not been impacted by the protests. But any disruption would cause further chaos with the world's supply chain.
[01:49:51]
OPPMANN: Even though the protests were supposed to combat rising food prices, local farmers say the road blocks are destroying their livelihood and will likely lead to greater instability.
"Milk producers cannot deliver their milk. They have to throw it away," he says. "Farmers are losing their harvest."
Government concessions have failed to get demonstrators to go home. And as the protests drag on in Panama, it's becoming less and less clear when and how they will end.
Patrick Oppmann, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: A new U.S. report says overall many countries around the world are making improvements to combat trafficking. But still others are falling behind in Russia's war on Ukraine and the millions of refugees it's created might only make matters worse.
CNN's Kylie Atwood has more now, reporting in from Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN U.S. SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The State Department rolled out the trafficking in persons report today and there were 21 countries that were upgraded. They had been working more on efforts to eliminate human trafficking in their country to provide support for the victims and to prosecute those who are responsible.
And there were 18 countries including Vietnam, Cambodia, who were countries that were downgraded on that list, meaning that they have done less to go after and try and eliminate human trafficking in their countries.
Now Secretary of State Antony Blinken highlighted the fact that the Ukraine war is something that could have an impact on human trafficking around the world. And fears about those who have been displaced by the Ukraine war getting involved in human trafficking. Now, one thing that a senior State Department official said when I asked what the Biden administration is doing to try and prevent this form happening, he spoke about the United States working with European allies saying that they have a historic opportunity right now to try and prevent a human trafficking crisis.
Kylie Atwood, CNN -- the State Department.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: U.S. President Joe Biden has signed an executive order meant to deter hostage taking and wrongful detentions of Americans worldwide. The order strengthens efforts to bring Americans home. The new policies and strategies that is imposing sanctions in (INAUDIBLE).
Also mentioned increased transparencies between the administration and family members of those being held by sharing information.
Some of those families welcomed the executive order as a key tool to bring their loved ones home. Others though have voiced immense frustration with the Biden administration saying it does not address their likely concern as well as their request.
Still to come, Nascar announces its first ever street race coming next year. (INAUDIBLE) city, I hope it's in Atlanta, will play host, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: The gap in pay between American workers and their bosses continues to widen. A new labor union report finds CEOs from nearly 500 of the largest public companies each receive on average just over $18 million last year. Nice work if you can get it.
24 times more than the rank and file employees made. CEO pay rose more than 18 percent last year, for the record that's more than double the rate of inflation in the U.S. While average workers' wages (INAUDIBLE) far behind. That's right, no kidding.
[01:54:49]
VAUSE: Amazon is suing the administrators of more than 10,000 Facebook groups accused of putting fake reviews of products on Amazon's market place in about half a dozen countries. The admins that allegedly recruited people to write the misleading review in exchange for cash or free items.
Amazon says Facebook's parent company Meta has removed more than 5,000 fake review groups from the platform since 2020.
A judge has ruled that Twitter's lawsuit against Elon Musk will proceed to an expedited five-day trial in October. The social media giant is suing the Tesla CEO for backing on a $44 billion acquisition agreement.
More details now from CNN's Alexandra Field. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Round one in the court battle between Twitter and Elon Musk goes to the social media giant with a judge in Delaware agreeing to a motion filed by the company to expedite a trial is now schedules to last five days in October, during that trial, it would be decide whether or not the court will compel Musk to fork over $44 billion in a deal to take over Twitter or it still has to pay a $1 billion break up fee.
Twitter's attorneys arguing that the richest mana on the planet now has a case of buyers' remorse and that he decided to back out of the deal after Twitter's stock prices tumbled as part of the market downturn.
Musk has said, that he is pulling the plug on the deal because of a lack of information shared by Twitter concerning the number of fake accounts and bots on the platform. His attorney has argued that the trial shouldn't start before 2023 in order to give them more time to investigate those accounts.
Twitter says that SEC filings show the estimated number of fake users to be about 5 percent but they also say that this isn't relevant to the case. That the issue of bots and fake accounts were never part of the agreement reached with Musk back in April. They say any delay in resolving the case will only create further uncertainty for shareholders and they say that that can cost irreparable harm for the company.
In New York, Alexandra Field, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: The world of figure skating is bidding farewell to one of the sports most accomplished stars. Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan is retiring from competition at the ripe old age of 27. He's known as the Ice Prince and he's been plagued by ankle injuries. But he says he's not giving up on his quest to perform the elusive quadruple axle.
In a legendary Hanyu won back to back Olympic gold medals, the first in 2014 which made him the first ever Asian male to win figure skating gold. He's also a two-time world champion and the winner of four Grand Prix finals. What will he do, you know?
Chicago has been chosen, thank God, for Nascar's first ever cup series Street Circuit Race, not Atlanta. Set to July of next year. This simulation shows what the three and a half, 12 minute course will look like as it goes past some of the cities most historic landmarks. Listen to that noise.
The even will coincide with Nascar's 75th anniversary celebration. Chicago, it's all yours.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM.
I'm John Vause. Lynda Kinkade is up next after a short break. See you tomorrow.
[01:57:59]
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