AFP

In the far north of the United Kingdom, where the wind blows and the sea rages, the islands of Orkney and Shetland have long relied on oil and gas for prosperity.

But as supplies dwindle and the fight against climate change becomes more urgent, the islands off the northeast coast of Scotland are increasingly turning to renewables.

Daniel Wise is head of offshore operations at Orbital Marine Power, a start-up that is testing its 02 tidal energy generator off Orkney. 

The submerged propellers turn with the current, producing enough electricity to power some 2,000 homes.

“Half a billion tonnes of seawater moves per hour on this site, so it’s very good for testing these turbines,” Wise told AFP.

On Orkney and Shetland, which are nearer to Norway than London, giant standing stones are a visual reminder of the ancient Neolithic past.

Now, gleaming white wind turbines are seen as symbols of a brighter, more sustainable future.

“A lot of people describe Orkney as a living laboratory,” said Jerry Gibson, operations technician at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), which tests wave and tidal energy converters on Orkney.

“And we have lots of test sites and various different companies that are all working together… in this sort of green economy that we’ve got going on.”

EMEC itself produces “green” hydrogen from renewable sources via a tidal turbine and electrolysis using seawater from Eday, one of Orkney’s 20 inhabited islands.

The hydrogen is pressurised and transported 16 miles (26 kilometres) south to the port of Kirkwall, where it is transformed into electricity to power the ferries at the quayside.

– Reliability –

Given its plentiful natural resources from wind and waves, Orkney — home to some 22,000 people — produces more energy than it uses.

“Hydrogen is important because it’s another means of storing energy rather than using batteries or going straight to the electricity grid,” said Gibson.

EMEC is also testing wave energy generators in the laboratory, which is more complex to model than tidal energy.

On the island of Yell, some 100 miles northeast on the former Viking stronghold of Shetland, another company, Nova Innovation, is also betting on the ebb and flow of tides.

“The beauty of tidal energy is that it’s totally predictable,” said Tom Wills, offshore manager at the company. 

“So I can tell you tomorrow or 2,000 years from now, how much tide is going to be flowing through that channel out there, our energy resources are not dependent on the weather.”

That predictability is crucial for the stability of energy supply as economies try to move away from high-polluting hydrocarbons.

Nova has set up a charging point in the village of Cullivoe on Yell for electric vehicles, powered by its underwater turbines.

Fiona Nicholson, who lives nearby, is a regular user.

“Where we live, we look out on the sea and we hear it every day and we know the power of it,” she said.

“So, it’s nice to be able to use it to charge the car for all my long commutes.”

The Sullom Voe oil terminal on the main island of Shetland is one of the largest in Europe. Locals acknowledge that North Sea drilling and infrastructure have brought benefits.

Revenue from the operations have funded roads, schools and sports centres, as well as supported thousands of jobs for the Shetlands’ nearly 23,000 inhabitants.

But equally, residents know time is running out and renewables offer a potential solution, even if some projects are contested.

– Worse than oil? –

One such project is the giant Viking Wind Farm, a partnership between SSE Renewables and the Shetland authorities.

It is scheduled to come on stream in 2023 and will have 103 turbines generating enough low-carbon energy to power nearly 476,000 homes.

The project could save half a million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year, the company says, and make Shetland a net exporter of electricity. 

But many locals are critical and have fought a long legal battle against it since planning permission was first approved in 2012.

“If they had come originally with a reasonably sized wind farm, I don’t think anybody would have objected,” said Donnie Morrison, whose hillside home will soon be surrounded by roaring turbines.

“But it’s so huge, it’s ridiculous.”

Laurie Goodlad, a tour guide, said the project would see the removal of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of peatland — a recognised carbon sink.

“They’re basically digging up the lungs of the planet,” she said.

Despite assurances that excavated peat will be reused, and no construction on pristine peat bogs, opponents even say Viking will be more environmentally destructive than the controversial drilling of new oil fields such as Cambo, northwest of Shetland.

“I see Cambo as less of a threat than what Viking Energy is,” said Goodlad. 

“Cambo and Viking Energy, ultimately, are doing the same thing: they’re removing fossil fuels from the ground.”

Residents also fear they will not benefit from electricity exports, despite assurances the community will receive dividends, as it does from oil.

– Transferable skills –

At the Shetland Islands Council, energy project manager Joe Najduch acknowledged that the Viking project had divided public opinion.

“Obviously, developing an onshore wind farm can be quite disruptive to the island but the benefits seems to outweigh the costs,” he said.

Another issue, trade unions say, is a lack of employment prospects, with the thousands of well-paid oil jobs unlikely to be all replaced by renewables.

Viking Energy says about 140 people will be needed to work on the project and some 35 permanent jobs will be created, but unions say that is not enough.

EMEC’s Gibson is more optimistic, seeing oil and gas industry skills as transferable.

At the same time, not switching to renewables would cause its own problems, said Najduch.

“Oil and gas could last in Shetland until roughly 2050,” he said. “If we don’t develop it (renewables), we’ll rely more on imports.”

The Humboldt archipelago off the northern Pacific coast of Chile is a “natural treasure” and refuge for unique species of fauna, including a particular type of penguin and an otter on the brink of extinction.

But its fragile ecosystem is under threat, say environmentalists, from a $2.5 billion mining project on the nearby mainland that has stirred the debate in Chile between the economic benefits of mineral extraction and the need to protect the planet as a climate catastrophe looms.

To make matters even more complicated, the Dominga Mining project in the Coquimbo region is also at the center of a corruption scandal that could topple President Sebastian Pinera.

The archipelago — made up of eight islands, including three that form a national reserve — is a “natural treasure” of biodiversity, Carlos Gaymer, an academic at the Catholic University of the North, told AFP.

As well as being home to 80 percent of the world’s Humboldt penguins, a threatened species, the archipelago is full of eared seals, bottlenose dolphins and chungungos, the world’s smallest otter, which is in danger of extinction.

“Scientists all over the world agree that there is nowhere else on the planet like this,” said Gaymer. He said the mining project should shock people — almost as if it were being proposed near the world-renowned Galapagos Islands.

The Humboldt archipelago’s waters attract thousands of birds and 14 species of whales.

– ‘Destruction of our culture’ –

For many locals, the mining project poses a threat to their traditional way of life.

“Perhaps the riches we possess are not material, but rather in our archipelago, in navigating freely between our islands,” Elias Barrera, 26, a third-generation fisherman and diver, told AFP.

Locals in Punta de Choros, who wake to a view of the archipelago from their homes on the mainland, have survived off sustainable fishing in the area for generations.

“For us the Dominga project is the destruction of our culture, our ancestral culture, the culture of the Chango people, the culture that has prevailed for 10,000 years living in these territories in an integrated and sustainable way with our environment,” Barrera said.

Around the proposed site of a cargo port and two open-air mines, close to the town of La Higuera, live wildlife of startling diversity: guacanos (closely related to the llama), desert foxes, and colonies of huge Tricahue parrots facing a risk of extinction but which enliven sunset from nests built into sand dunes with a cacophony of calls.

The construction of the cargo port, including a desalination plant, is crucial to making the mining project profitable.

But environmentalists say it will seriously jeopardize both land and marine life on the nearby archipelago. 

For Matias Asun, Greenpeace director for Chile, the mining project is a “true environmental crime.”

“Putting a mining project here, (the) best project you could design, would be like putting a discotheque inside a maternity ward,” said Asun.

– ‘Work for everyone’ –

Not everyone living locally opposes the project.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity for La Higuera, despite the possible impact on the environment, because all projects have an impact,” the town’s mayor Yerko Galleguillos told AFP.

The town of nearly 4,000 people has no public drinking water, sewage system or supermarket.

“Here there are a lot of people who go away to look for work, leaving their families behind. If Dominga comes here there will be work for everyone,” said Johanna Yvonne Villalobos, a 47-year-old homemaker.

In August, Coquimbo’s environmental authorities ruled in favor of the project, to the shock and chagrin of environmentalists, although the decision still requires supreme court approval.

The Dominga project is located in the far south of the Atacama desert — the driest in the world — some 530 kilometers (330 miles) north of Santiago but just 30 kilometers from the Humboldt archipelago.

Mining, particularly for copper for which Chile is the world leader, is crucial to the South American country’s economy.

Dominga owners Andes Iron plan on building a treatment plant, a desalination plant, and two waste deposits. Company officials declined to speak to AFP.

The company aims to exploit the mines for 22 years, producing 12 million tonnes of iron and 150,000 tonnes of copper a year.

Andes Iron promises to create 10,000 direct and 25,000 indirect jobs during construction, and 1,500 direct and 4,000 indirect jobs once the mines are operational.

– Need for ‘alternatives’ –

Biologist Cristina Dorador, a member of the 155-strong body that will draft the country’s new constitution, says Chile needs to change its development model, which relies on mineral extraction at the expense of nature.

“Of course we will have to develop alternatives … so that Chile can transform into a society of awareness that no longer depends on external markets and demand for minerals,” Dorador said.

Perhaps that shift is closer than it might seem.

The opposition moved on Wednesday to impeach Pinera over the sale of the Dominga mine in 2010 by a company owned by his children to another in the hands of one of his closest friends.

The deal, mostly concluded in a tax haven, came out in the recent leak of financial documents known as the Pandora Papers. It included a clause that would suspend a final payment instalment if the mine area is declared a protected reserve.

Pinera’s government ruled in favor of Andes Iron and against the environmentalists.

Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson Prince William presented the inaugural Earthshot prizes at a ceremony in London on Sunday, with  projects from Costa Rica, Italy, the Bahamas and India picking up prizes.

The new annual awards were created by Prince William to reward efforts to save the planet in the face of climate change and global warming.

Five winners were announced, each receiving a million pounds ($1.4 million).

The build-up to the televised event – — featuring the renowned naturalist David Attenborough and performances by Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and others — was marked by royal displeasure at world leaders’ inaction on climate change.

William hopes it will help propel the fight against climate change leading up to the COP26 summit, which opens in Scotland at the end of the month, calling those on the shortlist “innovators, leaders and visionaries”.

In a short film recorded for the ceremony in the London Eye and released ahead of the event on Sunday, William warns that the “actions we choose or choose not to take in the next 10 years will determine the fate of the planet for the next thousand”.

“A decade doesn’t seem long, but humankind has an outstanding record of being able to solve the unsolvable,” he says.

“The future is ours to determine. And if we set our minds to it, nothing is impossible.”

– Winning initiatives –

The Republic of Costa Rica was one of the winners on Sunday picking up the “Protect and Restore Nature” award for its efforts to protect forests, plant trees and restore ecosystems.

“We receive this recognition with pride but humility, what we have achieved in this small country in Central America can be done anywhere,” said Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado.

Indian company Takachar won the “Clean our Air” prize for the creation of a portable machine which turns agricultural waste into fertiliser so that farmers do not burn the waste and cause air pollution

The other winners included Coral Vita, from the Bahamas, for a project to grow coral in tanks, 50 times quick than coral normally grows.

The northern Italian city of Milan won the “Food Waste Hubs” award for collecting unused food and giving it to people who need it most. 

The “Fix our Climate” laureate went to a joint Thai-German-Italian team for the AEM Electrolyzer, which uses renewable energy to make clean hydrogen by splitting water into its constituent elements.

Each of the finalists — chosen by experts from more than 750 nominations — will be given help from companies to develop their projects.

Prince William announced that the 2022 edition of the Earthshot Prize will be held in the United States. 

In a BBC interview this week, William took a potshot at wealthy space tourists, for neglecting problems closer to Earth, while his father and grandmother have also weighed in this week on climate change.

Opening the Welsh legislature in Cardiff on Thursday, the 95-year-old monarch was overheard upbraiding world leaders who “talk” but “don’t do” enough about the planetary crisis.

The queen complained that not enough leaders had confirmed their attendance at COP26, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi among the key players in doubt.

– Royal double standards? –

William’s father, long-time environmentalist Prince Charles, meanwhile told the BBC that he worried the leaders coming would “just talk”, rather than implement “action on the ground”.

However, campaigners alleged climate hypocrisy from the royal family, which is Britain’s biggest landowner, including large tracts of Scotland given over to hunting and farming.

Last weekend, TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham led a children’s march to Buckingham Palace in London to deliver a petition with more than 100,000 signatures asking the queen to rewild royal lands.

“If they were to do so it would be a very powerful message that would resonate with people all over the world,” he said. 

The Earthshot Prize, launched in October last year, was inspired by US president John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” project in the 1960s to put a man on the moon.

It covers five areas: how to protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate.

Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson Prince William presented the inaugural Earthshot prizes at a ceremony in London on Sunday, with  projects from Costa Rica, Italy, the Bahamas and India picking up prizes.

The new annual awards were created by Prince William to reward efforts to save the planet in the face of climate change and global warming.

Five winners were announced, each receiving a million pounds ($1.4 million).

The build-up to the televised event – — featuring the renowned naturalist David Attenborough and performances by Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and others — was marked by royal displeasure at world leaders’ inaction on climate change.

William hopes it will help propel the fight against climate change leading up to the COP26 summit, which opens in Scotland at the end of the month, calling those on the shortlist “innovators, leaders and visionaries”.

In a short film recorded for the ceremony in the London Eye and released ahead of the event on Sunday, William warns that the “actions we choose or choose not to take in the next 10 years will determine the fate of the planet for the next thousand”.

“A decade doesn’t seem long, but humankind has an outstanding record of being able to solve the unsolvable,” he says.

“The future is ours to determine. And if we set our minds to it, nothing is impossible.”

– Winning initiatives –

The Republic of Costa Rica was one of the winners on Sunday picking up the “Protect and Restore Nature” award for its efforts to protect forests, plant trees and restore ecosystems.

“We receive this recognition with pride but humility, what we have achieved in this small country in Central America can be done anywhere,” said Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado.

Indian company Takachar won the “Clean our Air” prize for the creation of a portable machine which turns agricultural waste into fertiliser so that farmers do not burn the waste and cause air pollution

The other winners included Coral Vita, from the Bahamas, for a project to grow coral in tanks, 50 times quick than coral normally grows.

The northern Italian city of Milan won the “Food Waste Hubs” award for collecting unused food and giving it to people who need it most. 

The “Fix our Climate” laureate went to a joint Thai-German-Italian team for the AEM Electrolyzer, which uses renewable energy to make clean hydrogen by splitting water into its constituent elements.

Each of the finalists — chosen by experts from more than 750 nominations — will be given help from companies to develop their projects.

Prince William announced that the 2022 edition of the Earthshot Prize will be held in the United States. 

In a BBC interview this week, William took a potshot at wealthy space tourists, for neglecting problems closer to Earth, while his father and grandmother have also weighed in this week on climate change.

Opening the Welsh legislature in Cardiff on Thursday, the 95-year-old monarch was overheard upbraiding world leaders who “talk” but “don’t do” enough about the planetary crisis.

The queen complained that not enough leaders had confirmed their attendance at COP26, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi among the key players in doubt.

– Royal double standards? –

William’s father, long-time environmentalist Prince Charles, meanwhile told the BBC that he worried the leaders coming would “just talk”, rather than implement “action on the ground”.

However, campaigners alleged climate hypocrisy from the royal family, which is Britain’s biggest landowner, including large tracts of Scotland given over to hunting and farming.

Last weekend, TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham led a children’s march to Buckingham Palace in London to deliver a petition with more than 100,000 signatures asking the queen to rewild royal lands.

“If they were to do so it would be a very powerful message that would resonate with people all over the world,” he said. 

The Earthshot Prize, launched in October last year, was inspired by US president John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” project in the 1960s to put a man on the moon.

It covers five areas: how to protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate.

Planes were grounded on  La Palma, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, for the second straight day Sunday because of ash from a volcano that began erupting a month ago.

Airlines scrapped all 38 flights scheduled for Sunday, most of them to and from other islands in the Atlantic archipelago off  Morocco, an airport spokesman said.

Only four of the 34 flights scheduled for Saturday went ahead as planned.

Local airline Binter said in a statement it would “restart activity as soon as possible and as long as conditions allow flights to resume safely”.

La Cumbre Vieja volcano, which lies 15 kilometres (nine miles) west of the airport, erupted on September 19, spewing out rivers of lava that have slowly crept towards the sea.

So far no-one has been killed by the continuous lava flows, but the molten rock has covered 750 hectares (1,850 acres) and destroyed 1,800 buildings, including hundreds of homes, according to the European Union’s Copernicus disaster monitoring programme.

About 7,000 people have been evacuated from their homes on the island, which has a population of around 85,000 people.

The eruption has covered a large area with volcanic ash and been accompanied by dozens of minor earthquakes most days.

La Palma airport has had to close twice since the eruption began and airlines have sporadically had to cancel flights.

The head of the regional government of the archipelago, Angel Victor Torres, said Sunday that scientists monitoring the eruption have seen no indications that it is abating.

“We are at the mercy of the volcano, it’s the only one who can decide when this ends,” he told reporters.

Spain’s central government and the regional government of the Canary Islands have so far earmarked 300 million euros ($348 million) for  reconstruction on the island, which lives mainly from tourism and banana plantations.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has vowed to “spend whatever money is needed to reconstruct this marvellous island”.

“We will be there until we have rebuilt 100 percent of everything which this volcano has destroyed,” he added during an interview with private television La Sexta on Thursday.

It is the island’s third volcanic eruption in a century, the last one taking place in 1971.

The climate crisis threatens a double blow for the Middle East, experts say, by destroying its oil income as the world shifts to renewables and by raising temperatures to unliveable extremes.

Little has been done to address the challenge in a region long plagued by civil strife, war and refugee flows, even as global warming looks likely to accelerate these trends, a conference heard last week.

“Our region is classified as a global climate change hotspot,” Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades told the International Conference on Climate Change in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.

Home to half a billion people, the already sun-baked region has been designated as especially vulnerable by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the UN’s World Meteorological Organization.

Yet it is also home to several of the last countries that have not ratified the 2015 Paris Agreement — Iran, Iraq, Libya and Yemen — weeks before the UN’s COP26 climate conference starts in Glasgow.

When it comes to climate change and the Middle East, “there are terrible problems,” said Jeffrey Sachs, who heads the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

“First, this is the centre of world hydrocarbons, so a lot of the economies of this region depend on a fuel that is basically anachronistic, that we have to stop,” said Sachs of New York’s Columbia University. 

“Second, obviously, this is a dry region getting drier, so everywhere one looks, there is water insecurity, water stress, dislocation of populations,” he told AFP.

Sachs argued that “there needs to be a massive transformation in the region. Yet this is a politically fraught region, a divided region, a region that has been beset by a lot of war and conflict, often related to oil.” 

The good news, he said, is that there is “so much sunshine that the solution is staring the region in the face. They must just look up to the sky. The solar radiation provides the basis for the new clean, green economy.”

– Like ‘disaster movie’ –

Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who oversaw the Paris Agreement, pointed out that in this year’s blistering summer, “we had catastrophic wildfires in Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Lebanon”.

“There were temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran. We have drought in Turkey, water stress in different countries, particularly Jordan.

“These tragic events are not from a disaster movie, they are real and present.”

Cyprus, the EU member closest to the Middle East, is leading an international push involving 240 scientists to develop a 10-year regional action plan, to be presented at a summit a year from now.

The two-day conference last week heard some of the initial findings — including that the greenhouse gas emissions from the region have overtaken those of the European Union.

Already extremely water-scarce, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has been warming at twice the global average rate, at about 0.45 degrees Celsius per decade, since the 1980s, scientists say.

Deserts are expanding and dust storms intensifying as the region’s rare mountain snow caps slowly diminish, impacting river systems that supply water to millions. 

By the end of the century, on a business-as-usual emissions trajectory, temperatures could rise by six degrees Celsius — and by more during summertime in “super- or ultra-extreme heatwaves” — said Dutch atmospheric chemist Jos Lelieveld.

– ‘Future conflicts’ –

“It’s not just about averages, but about the extremes. It will be quite devastating,” Lelieveld of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Chemistry told AFP. 

Peak temperatures in cities, so-called ‘heat islands’ that are darker than surrounding deserts, could exceed 60 degrees Celsius, he said. 

“In heat waves, people die, of heat strokes and heart attacks. It’s like with corona, the vulnerable people will be suffering — the elderly, younger people, pregnant women.”

Fabius, like other speakers, warned that as farmlands turn to dust and tensions rise over shrinking resources, climate change can be “the root of future conflicts and violence”.

The region is already often torn over freshwater from the Nile, Jordan, Euphrates and Tigris river systems that all sustained ancient civilisations but have faced pressure as human populations have massively expanded.

Sachs pointed to the much-debated theory that climate change was one of the drivers behind Syria’s civil war, because a 2006-2009 record drought sent more than a million farmers into cities, heightening social stress before the uprising of 2011.

“We saw in Syria a decade ago how those dislocations of the massive drought spilt over, partially triggered and certainly exacerbated massive violence,” he said.

Some of the MENA region’s highest use of solar power is now seen in Syria’s last rebel-held area, the Idlib region, which has long been cut off from the state power grid and where photovoltaic panels have become ubiquitous.

A Russian actress and a film director returned to Earth Sunday after spending 12 days on the International Space Station (ISS) shooting scenes for the first movie in orbit.

Yulia Peresild, 37, and Klim Shipenko, 38, landed as scheduled on Kazakhstan’s steppe at 0436 GMT, according to footage broadcast live by Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.

Shipenko appeared distressed but smiling as he exited the capsule, waving his hand to cameras before being carried off by medical workers for an examination.

Peresild, who plays the film’s starring role and was selected from some 3,000 applicants, was extracted from the capsule to applause and a bouquet of flowers.

The actress said she is “sad” to have left the ISS.

“It seemed that 12 days was a lot, but when it was all over, I didn’t want to leave,” she told Russian television.

“This is a one-time experience.”

The team was ferried back to terra firma by cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, who had been on the space station for the past six months. 

– 21st century space race – 

The filmmakers had blasted off from the Russia-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in ex-Soviet Kazakhstan earlier this month, travelling to the ISS with veteran cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov to film scenes for “The Challenge”. 

If the project stays on track, the Russian crew will beat a Hollywood project announced last year by “Mission Impossible” star Tom Cruise together with NASA and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

The Russian movie’s plot, which has been mostly kept under wraps along with its budget, centres around a surgeon who is dispatched to the ISS to save a cosmonaut.

Shkaplerov, 49, along with the two Russian cosmonauts who were already aboard the ISS are said to have cameo roles in the film.

The mission was not without small hitches.

As the film crew docked at the ISS earlier this month, Shkaplerov had to switch to manual control. 

And when Russian flight controllers on Friday conducted a test on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft the ship’s thruster fired unexpectedly and destabilised the ISS for 30 minutes, a NASA spokesman told the Russian news agency TASS.

The team’s landing, which was documented by a film crew, will also feature in the movie, Konstantin Ernst, the head of the Kremlin-friendly Channel One TV network and a co-producer of “The Challenge”, told AFP.

– Russian firsts –

The mission will add to a long list of firsts for Russia’s space industry.

The Soviets launched the first satellite Sputnik, and sent into orbit the first animal, a dog named Laika, the first man, Yuri Gagarin and the first woman, Valentina Tereshkova.

But compared with the Soviet era, modern Russia has struggled to innovate, and its space industry is fighting to secure state funding with the Kremlin prioritising military spending. 

Its space agency is still reliant on Soviet-designed technology and has faced a number of setbacks, including corruption scandals and botched launches.

Russia is also falling behind in the global space race, facing tough competition from the United States and China, with Beijing showing growing ambitions in the industry.

Russia’s Roscosmos was also dealt a blow after SpaceX last year successfully delivered astronauts to the ISS, ending Moscow’s monopoly for journeys to the orbital station. 

In a bid to spruce up its image and diversify its revenue, Russia’s space programme revealed this year that it will be reviving its tourism plan to ferry fee-paying adventurers to the ISS. 

After a decade-long pause, Russia will send two Japanese tourists — including billionaire Yusaku Maezawa — to the ISS in December, capping a year that has been a milestone for amateur space travel.

Queen Elizabeth II’s grandson Prince William will bestow his inaugural “Earthshot” environmental prize at a gala ceremony on Sunday, after a buildup marked by royal displeasure at world leaders’ inaction on climate change.

At the televised event — featuring the renowned naturalist David Attenborough and performances by Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and others — five international winners will each receive £1 million ($1.4 million, 1.2 million euros).

William hopes the event will help propel the fight against climate change leading up to the COP26 summit in Scotland, calling those on the shortlist “innovators, leaders and visionaries”.

In a short film recorded for the ceremony in the London Eye and released ahead of the event on Sunday, William warns that the “actions we choose or choose not to take in the next 10 years will determine the fate of the planet for the next thousand.”

“A decade doesn’t seem long, but humankind has an outstanding record of being able to solve the unsolvable,” he says.

“The future is ours to determine. And if we set our minds to it, nothing is impossible.”

Those nominated include an Indian teenager who has designed a solar-powered ironing cart, and Costa Rica, which is pioneering a project to pay people to restore natural ecosystems.

A food waste hub in Milan, Italy, a coral replacement scheme in the Bahamas, and a clean-air app from China are also on the shortlist.

Each of the finalists — chosen by experts from more than 750 nominations — will be given help from companies to develop their projects.

In a BBC interview this week, William took a potshot at wealthy space tourists, for neglecting problems closer to Earth, while his father and grandmother have also weighed in this week on climate change.

Opening the Welsh legislature in Cardiff on Thursday, the 95-year-old monarch was overheard upbraiding world leaders who “talk” but “don’t do” enough about the planetary crisis.

The queen complained that not enough leaders had confirmed their attendance at COP26, with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi among the key players in doubt.

– Royal double standards? –

William’s father, long-time environmentalist Prince Charles, meanwhile told the BBC that he worried the leaders coming would “just talk”, rather than implement “action on the ground”.

Charles, whose Highgrove estate in western England has an entirely organic garden and farm, also outlined some of his own actions to reduce his carbon footprint, including cutting down on meat and fish.

In 2008, his office revealed he had converted a vintage Aston Martin car to run on biofuel made from surplus English white wine and whey from cheese manufacturing.

However, campaigners alleged climate hypocrisy from the royal family, which is Britain’s biggest landowner, including large tracts of Scotland given over to hunting and farming.

Last weekend, TV presenter and environmentalist Chris Packham led a children’s march to Buckingham Palace in London to deliver a petition with more than 100,000 signatures asking the queen to rewild royal lands.

“If they were to do so it would be a very powerful message that would resonate with people all over the world,” he said. 

The Earthshot Prize, launched in October last year, was inspired by US president John F. Kennedy’s “Moonshot” project in the 1960s to put a man on the moon.

It covers five areas: how to protect and restore nature; clean our air; revive our oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix our climate.

The shortlisted candidates are:

– Protect and restore nature:

Pole Pole Foundation (Democratic Republic of Congo)

Costa Rica

Restor (Switzerland)

– Clean air:

The Blue Map App (China)

Takachar (India)

Vinisha Umashankar (India)

– Revive oceans:

Coral Vita (Bahamas)

Pristine Seas (USA)

Living Seawalls (Australia)

– Build a waste-free world:

City of Milan food waste hubs (Italy)

Sanergy (Kenya)

Wota Box (Japan)

– Fix our climate:

AEM Electrolyser (Thailand/Germany/Italy)

Reeddi Capsules (Nigeria)

Solbazaar (Bangladesh)

Randal Plunkett, the 21st Baron of Dunsany, strides out of his Irish castle in a T-shirt bearing the name of death metal band “Cannibal Corpse” in bloody lettering.

In the distance, a russet-coloured stag appears for a moment, before dissolving into the 750 acres (300 hectares) of ancestral estate Plunkett has surrendered to the wilderness — almost half of his lands.

“I felt a sort of sense of duty towards the environment here,” said Plunkett, perched on a decaying tree trunk sprouting a clutch of mushrooms.

“I’m a caretaker of this estate for this generation and the estate is not just the castle, it’s also the land but it’s also the environment,” the aristocrat told AFP, his mane of shoulder-length hair rippling in the breeze.

– Born to rewild – 

Eight years ago, death metal fan Plunkett, whose family have presided over Dunsany Castle northwest of Dublin for nine centuries, began his “radical” rewilding project.

The 38-year-old vegan, an unlikely successor to ancestors depicted in sober portraits lining the walls of the grey stone castle, evicted livestock and dismissed lawnmowers to allow nature to take its course.

Now, the results are plain. The ultra-rare pine martin has been spotted. Otter and red deer thrive. 

Skies are jammed with birds: buzzards, red kites, peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, kestrels and snipes.

Plunkett says a woodpecker has been sighted in the area for the first time in a century.

Beyond the castle crenellations, the lawn is transformed into a swirling morass of 23 species of grass, fizzing with insect life.

Plunkett lends a hand here and there — planting 2,500 trees last year was no small feat — but mostly he is hands-off.

“As I watched it, I began to understand what the land was doing,” he said after trudging across a field of knotted undergrowth in a faux leather jacket.

“It became a rewilding project,” he said, two Jack Russell terriers named Beavis and Butt-head gambol around his vegan-friendly Doc Marten boots.

In June the UN said an area the size of China must be rewilded over the next decade. 

Stemming land “degradation” is key to keeping temperature rise below two degrees celsius in accordance with the international 2015 Paris Agreement, the UN Environment Programme said.

The UN COP26 summit is taking place in Scotland from October 31, hoping for stronger commitments from world leaders to halt runaway climate change.

Last Saturday, UK campaigners marched on Buckingham Palace with a petition signed by 100,000, calling on the British royal family to commit to rewild their estates before they appear as ambassadors at the Glasgow summit.

“I think we need to do a lot more than we’re doing. I unfortunately think that it’s not going to be done by governments,” said Plunkett pessimistically.

“I started all of this because I wasn’t willing to wait anymore,” he added. “I’m trying to popularise an idea, which I know for a fact will help.”

– Fresh Eire – 

The benefits of rewilding are manifold. It reverses biodiversity loss, draws carbon down from the atmosphere and can even quash natural disasters.

Some 65 percent of Ireland — known as the “emerald isle” — is agricultural land according to 2018 World Bank figures.

Livestock is responsible for around 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the UN. 

For Plunkett, unhitching the perception of the estate as a farming asset has been difficult. He said initially some locals considered him a “moron”.

“They thought that I was destroying perfectly good farmland,” he said. “They thought I was just decadent.”

There have been dark moments too. 

Plunkett now considers the rewilded estate an “oasis” where deer hunting is off-limits. He patrols the land at dawn to keep unwelcome poachers at bay.

“There were certain threats, there was abuse, there was vandalism. It became very difficult,” he recalled.

“It became a war and we’re slowly winning it because the truth is this needs to happen for climate change.”

Listing the species that have taken up residence on his estate it is clear Plunkett still has an appetite to fight for his self-described “mini-movement”.

“Every year I’m getting at least one animal back,” he enthused. 

“We’re bringing the wild back to Ireland, a place that used to be remembered for being green.”

Randal Plunkett, the 21st Baron of Dunsany, strides out of his Irish castle in a T-shirt bearing the name of death metal band “Cannibal Corpse” in bloody lettering.

In the distance, a russet-coloured stag appears for a moment, before dissolving into the 750 acres (300 hectares) of ancestral estate Plunkett has surrendered to the wilderness — almost half of his lands.

“I felt a sort of sense of duty towards the environment here,” said Plunkett, perched on a decaying tree trunk sprouting a clutch of mushrooms.

“I’m a caretaker of this estate for this generation and the estate is not just the castle, it’s also the land but it’s also the environment,” the aristocrat told AFP, his mane of shoulder-length hair rippling in the breeze.

– Born to rewild – 

Eight years ago, death metal fan Plunkett, whose family have presided over Dunsany Castle northwest of Dublin for nine centuries, began his “radical” rewilding project.

The 38-year-old vegan, an unlikely successor to ancestors depicted in sober portraits lining the walls of the grey stone castle, evicted livestock and dismissed lawnmowers to allow nature to take its course.

Now, the results are plain. The ultra-rare pine martin has been spotted. Otter and red deer thrive. 

Skies are jammed with birds: buzzards, red kites, peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, kestrels and snipes.

Plunkett says a woodpecker has been sighted in the area for the first time in a century.

Beyond the castle crenellations, the lawn is transformed into a swirling morass of 23 species of grass, fizzing with insect life.

Plunkett lends a hand here and there — planting 2,500 trees last year was no small feat — but mostly he is hands-off.

“As I watched it, I began to understand what the land was doing,” he said after trudging across a field of knotted undergrowth in a faux leather jacket.

“It became a rewilding project,” he said, two Jack Russell terriers named Beavis and Butt-head gambol around his vegan-friendly Doc Marten boots.

In June the UN said an area the size of China must be rewilded over the next decade. 

Stemming land “degradation” is key to keeping temperature rise below two degrees celsius in accordance with the international 2015 Paris Agreement, the UN Environment Programme said.

The UN COP26 summit is taking place in Scotland from October 31, hoping for stronger commitments from world leaders to halt runaway climate change.

Last Saturday, UK campaigners marched on Buckingham Palace with a petition signed by 100,000, calling on the British royal family to commit to rewild their estates before they appear as ambassadors at the Glasgow summit.

“I think we need to do a lot more than we’re doing. I unfortunately think that it’s not going to be done by governments,” said Plunkett pessimistically.

“I started all of this because I wasn’t willing to wait anymore,” he added. “I’m trying to popularise an idea, which I know for a fact will help.”

– Fresh Eire – 

The benefits of rewilding are manifold. It reverses biodiversity loss, draws carbon down from the atmosphere and can even quash natural disasters.

Some 65 percent of Ireland — known as the “emerald isle” — is agricultural land according to 2018 World Bank figures.

Livestock is responsible for around 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the UN. 

For Plunkett, unhitching the perception of the estate as a farming asset has been difficult. He said initially some locals considered him a “moron”.

“They thought that I was destroying perfectly good farmland,” he said. “They thought I was just decadent.”

There have been dark moments too. 

Plunkett now considers the rewilded estate an “oasis” where deer hunting is off-limits. He patrols the land at dawn to keep unwelcome poachers at bay.

“There were certain threats, there was abuse, there was vandalism. It became very difficult,” he recalled.

“It became a war and we’re slowly winning it because the truth is this needs to happen for climate change.”

Listing the species that have taken up residence on his estate it is clear Plunkett still has an appetite to fight for his self-described “mini-movement”.

“Every year I’m getting at least one animal back,” he enthused. 

“We’re bringing the wild back to Ireland, a place that used to be remembered for being green.”