An experimental drug could offer hope for restoring damaged brain cells in Parkinson’s patients, scientists said on Wednesday, although they cautioned that a clinical trial was not able to prove the treatment slowed or halted the neurodegenerative disease.

The trial involved delivery of a protein therapy directly into the brains of Parkinson’s patients. Scientists said some brain scans revealed “extremely promising” effects on damaged neurons of those who received the treatment.

“The spatial and relative magnitude of the improvement in the brain scans is beyond anything seen previously in trials,” said Alan Whone, a Parkinson’s specialist at Britain’s Bristol University who co-led the trial.

Researchers said the therapy warranted further investigation even though it failed to demonstrate improvement of symptoms in patients who received it when compared to others given a placebo.

“The primary outcome was disappointing,” Whone told reporters at a briefing in London.

Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease that affects around one percent to two percent of people over age 65. It causes tremors, muscle stiffness and movement and balance problems. Although some medicines can improve symptoms, there is no cure or treatment that can slow progression of the disease.

This trial involved 41 patients who all underwent robot-assisted surgery to have tubes placed into their brains.

That allowed doctors to infuse either the experimental treatment – called Glial Cell Line Derived Neurotrophic Factor (GDNF) – or a placebo directly to the affected brain areas. GDNF is made by privately-held Canadian biotech firm MedGenesis Therapeutix.

Half of the patients were given monthly GDNF infusions and half received monthly placebo infusions. After nine months, all participants were offered the GDNF infusions for a further nine months.

Results showed some signs of improvements, Whone said, but there was no significant difference between the treatment and placebo groups. He said this was in part due to the sizeable placebo effect in this trial.

The placebo effect has been known to confound clinical trials of treatments for conditions involving the brain, boosted by patients’ expectations that a potential treatment will work.

But the brain scan results suggested the drug might be starting to reawaken damaged brain cells. After nine months, there was no change in the scans of patients who received a placebo, but those who got GDNF showed major changes in a key area of the brain affected by the disease.

Whone said this suggested GDNF could be “a means to possibly reawaken and restore” brain cells that are gradually destroyed in Parkinson’s.
…

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It’s not just human workers who commute each day. Millions of tiny creatures that form the base of the ocean food chain migrate in giant swarms each night. They go up and down – from deep waters to the surface to feed, then back to the depths as dawn breaks. Scientists are looking at how this vertical commute affects the ocean, which is a key regulator of climate by storing and transporting heat, carbon, nutrients and freshwater around the world.
…

your ads here!

It’s not just human workers who commute each day. Millions of tiny creatures that form the base of the ocean food chain migrate in giant swarms each night. They go up and down – from deep waters to the surface to feed, then back to the depths as dawn breaks. Scientists are looking at how this vertical commute affects the ocean, which is a key regulator of climate by storing and transporting heat, carbon, nutrients and freshwater around the world.
…

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If two New York City lawmakers get their way, the long, droning siren from police cars, fire trucks and ambulances that has been part of the city’s soundtrack for generations — WAAAAAhhhhhhh — would be replaced by a high-low wail similar to what’s heard on the streets of London and Paris — WEE-oww-WEE-oww-WEE-oww.

Their reasons for the switch: The European-style siren is less shrill and annoying and contributes less to noise pollution.

“I’ve been hearing from constituents complaining that the current sirens in New York are a high-pitched, continuous noise — a nuisance,” says Helen Rosenthal, an Upper West Side Democrat and one of the sponsors of the proposal.

Noise is consistently among the most frequent complaints to the city’s hotline, with many calls about the loud sirens that blare 24/7, wake people from their slumber and cause dogs to howl in unison. 

“Europeanizing” New York sirens would not change the decibel level — still topping out at roughly 118 — but would lower the frequency and thus make the sirens less shrill but still ear-catching enough to grab attention. 

“The alternating high-low siren required by this legislation is not as piercing,” adds co-sponsor Carlina Rivera, a Manhattan Democrat.

If approved in a council vote — which has yet to be scheduled — the legislation would require sirens on all emergency vehicles to transition within a two-year period.

Buzz about the bill even made it to last week’s NBC “Saturday Night Live,” where a “Weekend Update” anchor joked that with the European-style siren, “You can spend your ride in the ambulance pretending you have universal health care.”

City council members are looking closely at the experience of the city’s Mount Sinai Health System, which already uses the two-tone siren in its 25 ambulances that make about 100,000 trips a year. The switch was made last year after decades of complaints from residents of the Upper East Side home of the hospital complex. 

At community board meetings, Mount Sinai’s Emergency Medical Services Director Joseph Davis played various siren options to find out which one locals preferred.

 “People hated them all,” Davis said, “but the `high-low’ was least intrusive. It didn’t have that piercing sound.”

Davis, a 40-year EMS veteran who suffers from hearing damage that he blames on repeated exposure to sirens, said the change was simple and cost effective: All it took was reprogramming the electronic box in each vehicle, which comes preloaded with seven different sounds with names such as “Wail,” “Yelp” and “Piercer.” 

In fact, many ambulances, fire trucks and police cars are equipped with alternate sirens and horns that they can employ in certain situations, such as in traffic when cars and pedestrians just won’t get out of the way. They include short blips and the “Rumbler” low-frequency, vibrating siren aimed at motorists who may otherwise be unable to hear higher frequencies.

For some Manhattanites, any change in the city’s daily siren song would be welcomed.

“I always have to cover my ears with my hands when a siren-blaring ambulance passes,” says Louise Belulovich, a Manhattan attorney. “If I’m carrying packages and unable to, then what is an annoying experience becomes a painful one.”

But Linda Sachs, a longtime resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side who lives near one of the Mount Sinai hospitals that uses the new European siren, doesn’t think the change is for the good. She prefers the old New York standard.

“The old sirens never woke me up, but these make me shudder,” Sachs says, adding that she understands city lawmakers are attempting to do something about noise pollution. “But the old sound wasn’t as obnoxious.”

 

 

 
…

your ads here!

If two New York City lawmakers get their way, the long, droning siren from police cars, fire trucks and ambulances that has been part of the city’s soundtrack for generations — WAAAAAhhhhhhh — would be replaced by a high-low wail similar to what’s heard on the streets of London and Paris — WEE-oww-WEE-oww-WEE-oww.

Their reasons for the switch: The European-style siren is less shrill and annoying and contributes less to noise pollution.

“I’ve been hearing from constituents complaining that the current sirens in New York are a high-pitched, continuous noise — a nuisance,” says Helen Rosenthal, an Upper West Side Democrat and one of the sponsors of the proposal.

Noise is consistently among the most frequent complaints to the city’s hotline, with many calls about the loud sirens that blare 24/7, wake people from their slumber and cause dogs to howl in unison. 

“Europeanizing” New York sirens would not change the decibel level — still topping out at roughly 118 — but would lower the frequency and thus make the sirens less shrill but still ear-catching enough to grab attention. 

“The alternating high-low siren required by this legislation is not as piercing,” adds co-sponsor Carlina Rivera, a Manhattan Democrat.

If approved in a council vote — which has yet to be scheduled — the legislation would require sirens on all emergency vehicles to transition within a two-year period.

Buzz about the bill even made it to last week’s NBC “Saturday Night Live,” where a “Weekend Update” anchor joked that with the European-style siren, “You can spend your ride in the ambulance pretending you have universal health care.”

City council members are looking closely at the experience of the city’s Mount Sinai Health System, which already uses the two-tone siren in its 25 ambulances that make about 100,000 trips a year. The switch was made last year after decades of complaints from residents of the Upper East Side home of the hospital complex. 

At community board meetings, Mount Sinai’s Emergency Medical Services Director Joseph Davis played various siren options to find out which one locals preferred.

 “People hated them all,” Davis said, “but the `high-low’ was least intrusive. It didn’t have that piercing sound.”

Davis, a 40-year EMS veteran who suffers from hearing damage that he blames on repeated exposure to sirens, said the change was simple and cost effective: All it took was reprogramming the electronic box in each vehicle, which comes preloaded with seven different sounds with names such as “Wail,” “Yelp” and “Piercer.” 

In fact, many ambulances, fire trucks and police cars are equipped with alternate sirens and horns that they can employ in certain situations, such as in traffic when cars and pedestrians just won’t get out of the way. They include short blips and the “Rumbler” low-frequency, vibrating siren aimed at motorists who may otherwise be unable to hear higher frequencies.

For some Manhattanites, any change in the city’s daily siren song would be welcomed.

“I always have to cover my ears with my hands when a siren-blaring ambulance passes,” says Louise Belulovich, a Manhattan attorney. “If I’m carrying packages and unable to, then what is an annoying experience becomes a painful one.”

But Linda Sachs, a longtime resident of Manhattan’s Upper West Side who lives near one of the Mount Sinai hospitals that uses the new European siren, doesn’t think the change is for the good. She prefers the old New York standard.

“The old sirens never woke me up, but these make me shudder,” Sachs says, adding that she understands city lawmakers are attempting to do something about noise pollution. “But the old sound wasn’t as obnoxious.”

 

 

 
…

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Bacteria lodged deep in Ella Balasa’s lungs were impervious to most antibiotics. At 26, gasping for breath, she sought out a dramatic experiment — deliberately inhaling a virus culled from sewage to attack her superbug.

“I’m really running out of options,” said Balasa, who traveled from her Richmond, Virginia, home to Yale University for the last-resort treatment. “I know it might not have an effect. But I am very hopeful.”

Pitting one germ against another may sound radical, but it’s a sign of a growing global crisis. Increasingly people are dying of infections that once were easy to treat because many common bugs have evolved to withstand multiple antibiotics. Some, dubbed “nightmare bacteria,” are untreatable. Now scientists are racing to find novel alternatives to traditional antibiotics, a hunt that is uncovering unusual ways to counter infection, in unusual places.

One possible treatment tricks bacteria out of a nutrient they need to survive. Others rev up the immune system to better fend off germs.

And viruses called bacteriophages — discovered a century ago but largely shelved in the West when easier-to-use antibiotics came along — are being tried in a handful of emergency cases.

“People’s frustration with antibiotic resistance boiled over,” said Yale biologist Benjamin Chan, who travels the world collecting phages and receives calls from desperate patients asking to try them. “We’re more appreciative of the fact that we need alternatives.”

Nature’s bacterial predator, each phage variety targets a different bacterial strain. Originally used to treat dysentery in the early 20th century, today Chan looks in places like ditches, ponds, and, yes, sewage treatment plants for types that attack a variety of human infections.

“The best places are often really dirty places, because we’re dirty animals,” he said.

Chan saw hope for Balasa in a lab dish covered in brownish bacterial goo.

Balasa has a genetic disease called cystic fibrosis that scars her lungs and traps bacteria inside, including a superbug named Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A daily dose of inhaled antibiotics kept the infection in check until last fall, when the drugs quit working. A last-ditch IV antibiotic wasn’t helping much either.

Chan grew a sample of Balasa’s bacteria from her phlegm. Then came the key test: He dripped several pseudomonas-targeting phages into the grimy dish — and clear circles began appearing as the viruses consumed the bugs around them.

But would what worked in the lab really help Balasa’s lungs?

Bugs outpacing drugs

At least 23,000 Americans die every year as a direct result of an antibiotic-resistant infection, and many more die from related complications, according to a 2013 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC plans an updated count, but other research has estimated the toll could be seven times higher.

And while there are no good counts in much of the world, one often-cited British report said unless solutions are found, by 2050 up to 10 million people globally could be dying from drug-resistant infections, slightly more than die from cancer today.

Yet few new antibiotics make it to market, and many major drug companies have ended antibiotic research, seeing little profit in medicines that germs will soon outsmart. A recent report found just 11 traditional antibiotics being studied to treat any of the World Health Organization’s list of worst bugs, with no guarantee they’ll work.

And while some people are more at risk — those getting surgery, or cancer chemotherapy, for example — “antibiotic resistance is a problem essentially for everyone,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National Institutes of Health.

“Over the next several years, all indicators seem to point to the fact that this is going to get worse and worse,” he added.

Looking for bugs’ weak spots

Finding alternatives means “figuring out what the vulnerabilities of infecting bacteria are. What do they need to cause an infection?” said Dr. Pradeep Singh of the University of Washington.

Singh and fellow UW lung specialist Dr. Christopher Goss zeroed in on iron, a nutrient vital for bacterial growth. It turns out that bugs can’t always tell the difference between iron and a chemically similar metal named gallium. Gallium doesn’t nourish and knocks other systems out of whack, Goss said.

For two small studies, the researchers recruited cystic fibrosis patients who had antibiotic-resistant pseudomonas in their lungs but weren’t openly sick. The patients received a five-day infusion of a gallium-based drug. Over the next few weeks, their lung function improved, enough that next-step studies are being planned.

“It just seems like a proactive way of destroying bacteria,” said study participant Tre LaRosa, 24, of Cincinnati. His sister died of cystic fibrosis and while his own CF is under control, he worries that one day a resistant infection will flare. “I can’t do anything to prevent that. Antibiotic resistance I think is one of the least talked about and most significant concerns.”

Spurring the immune system

Fauci envisions doctors one day vaccinating people a few weeks before, say, a planned knee replacement to guard against catching a staph infection in the hospital.

Sixteen experimental vaccines are in development to target various infections, according to a recent presentation to a presidential advisory council on resistant germs.

Particularly promising, Fauci says, are lab-engineered “monoclonal antibodies” designed to home in on specific bugs. In one set of studies, researchers are giving experimental antibodies to ventilator patients who have bacteria building up that could trigger pneumonia.

Harnessing viruses for the best attack

In Virginia, Balasa learned of another cystic fibrosis patient helped by Yale’s phage experiments and asked to try, hoping to postpone the last option for CF, a lung transplant.

Phages work very differently than traditional antibiotics. Like a parasite, the virus infiltrates bacterial cells and uses them to copy itself, killing the bug as those copies pop out and search for more bacteria. Once the infection’s gone, the virus dies out. Because each phage only recognizes certain bacteria, it shouldn’t kill off “good bugs” in the digestive tract like antibiotics do.

Bacteria evolve to escape phages just like they escape antibiotics, but they generally make trade-offs to do so — such as losing some of their antibiotic resistance, said Yale evolutionary biologist Paul Turner.

For example, some phages recognize bacteria by a pump on their surface that deflects antibiotics. As the phages kill those bugs, the bacteria rapidly evolve to get rid of that surface pump — meaning survivors should be susceptible to antibiotics again.

“It’s reviving an arsenal of drugs that are no longer useful,” Turner said.

Yale’s first test case was an 82-year-old man near death from a heart implant teeming with untreatable pseudomonas. Chan purified a phage from a Connecticut lake that he’d matched to the patient’s germs, and with emergency permission from the Food and Drug Administration, doctors squirted it into the wound. The man’s infection disappeared.

Then doctors at the University of California, San Diego, saved a colleague who’d been in a months-long coma, using an IV mixture of several phages that target a superbug named Acinetobacter baumannii.

Doctors and families began calling both centers seeking emergency care, even as formal studies are being planned to try to prove phages’ value.

“There’s an incredible opportunity here,” said Yale pulmonologist Dr. Jon Koff. “But with that you have to have the appropriate amount of skepticism,” with careful testing to tell when it might help.

Last month, Balasa became Yale’s eighth patient, inhaling billions of phages over seven days.

Almost immediately, she was coughing up fewer bacteria. It took a few weeks for her to feel better, though, and during that time she switched briefly to some antibiotics she’d previously given up. Without a formal study it’s hard to know, but Chan’s tests suggest phages killed much of her predominant pseudomonas strain and made the survivors sensitive again to a course of those antibiotics.

Balasa called that “a very big success for me,” and was able to quit her antibiotics. She didn’t notice additional improvement after a second round of phages, aimed at different strains.

“The true test,” Balasa said, “is how long I can go without using any antibiotics again.”
…

your ads here!

Bacteria lodged deep in Ella Balasa’s lungs were impervious to most antibiotics. At 26, gasping for breath, she sought out a dramatic experiment — deliberately inhaling a virus culled from sewage to attack her superbug.

“I’m really running out of options,” said Balasa, who traveled from her Richmond, Virginia, home to Yale University for the last-resort treatment. “I know it might not have an effect. But I am very hopeful.”

Pitting one germ against another may sound radical, but it’s a sign of a growing global crisis. Increasingly people are dying of infections that once were easy to treat because many common bugs have evolved to withstand multiple antibiotics. Some, dubbed “nightmare bacteria,” are untreatable. Now scientists are racing to find novel alternatives to traditional antibiotics, a hunt that is uncovering unusual ways to counter infection, in unusual places.

One possible treatment tricks bacteria out of a nutrient they need to survive. Others rev up the immune system to better fend off germs.

And viruses called bacteriophages — discovered a century ago but largely shelved in the West when easier-to-use antibiotics came along — are being tried in a handful of emergency cases.

“People’s frustration with antibiotic resistance boiled over,” said Yale biologist Benjamin Chan, who travels the world collecting phages and receives calls from desperate patients asking to try them. “We’re more appreciative of the fact that we need alternatives.”

Nature’s bacterial predator, each phage variety targets a different bacterial strain. Originally used to treat dysentery in the early 20th century, today Chan looks in places like ditches, ponds, and, yes, sewage treatment plants for types that attack a variety of human infections.

“The best places are often really dirty places, because we’re dirty animals,” he said.

Chan saw hope for Balasa in a lab dish covered in brownish bacterial goo.

Balasa has a genetic disease called cystic fibrosis that scars her lungs and traps bacteria inside, including a superbug named Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A daily dose of inhaled antibiotics kept the infection in check until last fall, when the drugs quit working. A last-ditch IV antibiotic wasn’t helping much either.

Chan grew a sample of Balasa’s bacteria from her phlegm. Then came the key test: He dripped several pseudomonas-targeting phages into the grimy dish — and clear circles began appearing as the viruses consumed the bugs around them.

But would what worked in the lab really help Balasa’s lungs?

Bugs outpacing drugs

At least 23,000 Americans die every year as a direct result of an antibiotic-resistant infection, and many more die from related complications, according to a 2013 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC plans an updated count, but other research has estimated the toll could be seven times higher.

And while there are no good counts in much of the world, one often-cited British report said unless solutions are found, by 2050 up to 10 million people globally could be dying from drug-resistant infections, slightly more than die from cancer today.

Yet few new antibiotics make it to market, and many major drug companies have ended antibiotic research, seeing little profit in medicines that germs will soon outsmart. A recent report found just 11 traditional antibiotics being studied to treat any of the World Health Organization’s list of worst bugs, with no guarantee they’ll work.

And while some people are more at risk — those getting surgery, or cancer chemotherapy, for example — “antibiotic resistance is a problem essentially for everyone,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National Institutes of Health.

“Over the next several years, all indicators seem to point to the fact that this is going to get worse and worse,” he added.

Looking for bugs’ weak spots

Finding alternatives means “figuring out what the vulnerabilities of infecting bacteria are. What do they need to cause an infection?” said Dr. Pradeep Singh of the University of Washington.

Singh and fellow UW lung specialist Dr. Christopher Goss zeroed in on iron, a nutrient vital for bacterial growth. It turns out that bugs can’t always tell the difference between iron and a chemically similar metal named gallium. Gallium doesn’t nourish and knocks other systems out of whack, Goss said.

For two small studies, the researchers recruited cystic fibrosis patients who had antibiotic-resistant pseudomonas in their lungs but weren’t openly sick. The patients received a five-day infusion of a gallium-based drug. Over the next few weeks, their lung function improved, enough that next-step studies are being planned.

“It just seems like a proactive way of destroying bacteria,” said study participant Tre LaRosa, 24, of Cincinnati. His sister died of cystic fibrosis and while his own CF is under control, he worries that one day a resistant infection will flare. “I can’t do anything to prevent that. Antibiotic resistance I think is one of the least talked about and most significant concerns.”

Spurring the immune system

Fauci envisions doctors one day vaccinating people a few weeks before, say, a planned knee replacement to guard against catching a staph infection in the hospital.

Sixteen experimental vaccines are in development to target various infections, according to a recent presentation to a presidential advisory council on resistant germs.

Particularly promising, Fauci says, are lab-engineered “monoclonal antibodies” designed to home in on specific bugs. In one set of studies, researchers are giving experimental antibodies to ventilator patients who have bacteria building up that could trigger pneumonia.

Harnessing viruses for the best attack

In Virginia, Balasa learned of another cystic fibrosis patient helped by Yale’s phage experiments and asked to try, hoping to postpone the last option for CF, a lung transplant.

Phages work very differently than traditional antibiotics. Like a parasite, the virus infiltrates bacterial cells and uses them to copy itself, killing the bug as those copies pop out and search for more bacteria. Once the infection’s gone, the virus dies out. Because each phage only recognizes certain bacteria, it shouldn’t kill off “good bugs” in the digestive tract like antibiotics do.

Bacteria evolve to escape phages just like they escape antibiotics, but they generally make trade-offs to do so — such as losing some of their antibiotic resistance, said Yale evolutionary biologist Paul Turner.

For example, some phages recognize bacteria by a pump on their surface that deflects antibiotics. As the phages kill those bugs, the bacteria rapidly evolve to get rid of that surface pump — meaning survivors should be susceptible to antibiotics again.

“It’s reviving an arsenal of drugs that are no longer useful,” Turner said.

Yale’s first test case was an 82-year-old man near death from a heart implant teeming with untreatable pseudomonas. Chan purified a phage from a Connecticut lake that he’d matched to the patient’s germs, and with emergency permission from the Food and Drug Administration, doctors squirted it into the wound. The man’s infection disappeared.

Then doctors at the University of California, San Diego, saved a colleague who’d been in a months-long coma, using an IV mixture of several phages that target a superbug named Acinetobacter baumannii.

Doctors and families began calling both centers seeking emergency care, even as formal studies are being planned to try to prove phages’ value.

“There’s an incredible opportunity here,” said Yale pulmonologist Dr. Jon Koff. “But with that you have to have the appropriate amount of skepticism,” with careful testing to tell when it might help.

Last month, Balasa became Yale’s eighth patient, inhaling billions of phages over seven days.

Almost immediately, she was coughing up fewer bacteria. It took a few weeks for her to feel better, though, and during that time she switched briefly to some antibiotics she’d previously given up. Without a formal study it’s hard to know, but Chan’s tests suggest phages killed much of her predominant pseudomonas strain and made the survivors sensitive again to a course of those antibiotics.

Balasa called that “a very big success for me,” and was able to quit her antibiotics. She didn’t notice additional improvement after a second round of phages, aimed at different strains.

“The true test,” Balasa said, “is how long I can go without using any antibiotics again.”
…

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In its efforts to slash its climate-changing emissions nearly to zero by 2050, Rio de Janeiro has chosen a perhaps unlikely place to start: its trash bins.

At a huge waste treatment plant outside of the famed beach city, methane gas released by buried municipal garbage is captured and turned into energy as part of the city’s key push to meet its ambitious goals to become carbon neutral.

Every day, trucks unload 10,000 tons of waste at the CTR waste treatment plant in Seropedica, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Rio de Janeiro.

The plant turns household and industrial food and yard waste, which once would have rotted in a landfill – creating a major source of climate-change-spurring emissions – into biogas that is sold to industries or to the state’s gas company.

The waste treatment plant, unusual in Latin America, can produce 20,000 cubic meters of purified gas an hour, according to Jose Henrique Monteiro Penido, the head of environmental sustainability at COMLURB, Rio’s waste management company.

“Everyone talks about recycling but the biggest environmental problem is the organic fraction of garbage,” he said.

Once in a landfill, rotting material releases methane that can, in the short term, drive climate change at a much faster pace than emissions from other sources, such as automobiles or air conditioners.

That gas, and the slurry left over from putrefying waste, “is the most serious problem,” Penido said.

Rio de Janeiro, part of the C40 Cities initiative – a network of cities pushing climate action – has committed to reducing its climate changing emissions by 20 percent between 2005 to 2020.

The city of about 6.7 million is also one of more than 70 cities worldwide that are aiming to become “carbon neutral” by 2050, meaning they will produce no more climate-changing emissions than they can offset by other means, such as planting carbon-absorbing trees.

Cities account for about three-quarters of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the United Nations, and consume more than two-thirds of the world’s energy.

That means whether they succeed or fail in curbing emissions will have a huge impact on whether the world’s goals to prevent the worst impacts of climate goals are met.

From planting trees to promoting renewable energy and cleaner methods of transport, such as electric cars and buses, each city is going about achieving its carbon neutral goals in different ways, and with varying degrees of success.

In Rio de Janeiro’s case, changes to waste treatment are responsible for about two-thirds of emissions reductions made so far, according to Jose Miguel Carneiro Pacheco, manager of climate change and sustainable development at the city’s department of conservation and environment.

Biogas production from the Seropedica plant alone accounts for a third of the reductions in emissions so far in Rio de Janeiro, Pacheco said.

Goals at risk?

Whether Rio de Janeiro will reach its emission reduction targets in full by 2020 is unclear – and the goal is at risk, officials and environmentalists say.

A lack of private investment and delays in large-scale public works have lowered the city government’s estimate of the emissions cuts possible by 2020 to 18 percent “if everything stays as it is”, Pacheco said.

The launch of an additional waste treatment center, for example, has been delayed, as has a new metro train line for the city, as well as installation of new high-capacity express bus lanes.

The 2020 targets could still be achieved, Pacheco said, but only if the delayed projects – or other efforts – push ahead, he said.

“We need to measure the emission reductions contained in the 2017-2020 strategic plan to see if we can achieve the remainder by 2020,” Pacheco said.

But the push for lower emissions comes as Rio struggles to recover from its worst financial crisis in decades, brought on in part by public corruption scandals and lower prices for its key export products, including oil.

That financial crunch has made efforts to attract private funding for clean energy projects and other emissions-reducing ideas harder, Pacheco said.

The city, for instance, failed to find a taker for a public tender to replace the city’s 430,000 street lights with energy-saving LED bulbs. It is now looking for a partner to install solar panels in about 1,500 schools, he said.

“The city’s economic situation is not favorable for these projects, which demand big investments,” he said.

Growing risks

Nationwide, environmentalists fear Brazil’s growing deforestation – a driver of climate change – will worsen under the right-leaning government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in January and has promised to open up more protected land for mining and agriculture.

Brazilians consider climate change the main threat to the country’s and the planet’s safety, above terrorism and the state of the economy, a 2017 study from the Washington-based Pew Research Center found.

For Mauro Pereira, executive director of the non-profit Defensores do Planeta, a youth-led environmental rights group based in Rio de Janerio, the city’s leaders are doing too little to keep pledges to curb emissions and ensure residents get a voice in decisions made.

“Until 2012, City Hall did well but not in the last years,” Pereira said in a telephone interview.

For instance, he said, when Rio hosted the 2016 summer Olympics, it had an agreement with the Olympic committee to plant 12 million tree seedlings in the city – and 24 million in the state as a whole – to compensate for the environmental impacts of the event.

But, to date, only about half of those – 5.5 million – have been planted in the city, Pereira said.

In a statement, Rio’s City Hall said it was “unaware” of the number cited by Defensores do Planeta and confirmed only a commitment to plant 13,500 trees in the Parque Radical de Deodoro park as an Olympic environmental legacy.

In addition, City Hall said the 24 million tree-planting target was proposed by the state of Rio de Janeiro but was re-evaluated and discarded after the state, the Olympic Committee and other bodies involved found that it was not feasible.

Pereira, however, said he had followed the negotiations for the Olympic games and that the targets were not dropped.

He said the city was doing well on some other environmental measures including improving waste treatment, adding bike lanes to curb emissions and installing solar energy in schools.

He said he was concerned about the effects of climate change in Rio, especially in its poorer areas, and urged city officials to carry out more risk assessments.

Almost every year, torrential rainstorms trigger fatal mudslides and flooding in mountaintop neighborhoods in and around Rio de Janeiro.

The flatter and largely poor zones to the west of downtown also face a growing heat threat, as climate change brings more extreme temperatures, he said.

“The West zone is very hot – 48, 49 degrees, and that’s in addition to torrential rains. We’re already worried about the rainy season from January onwards,” he said. “We just want City Hall to comply with its international agreements for the city to become an example for the world.”

 
…

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In its efforts to slash its climate-changing emissions nearly to zero by 2050, Rio de Janeiro has chosen a perhaps unlikely place to start: its trash bins.

At a huge waste treatment plant outside of the famed beach city, methane gas released by buried municipal garbage is captured and turned into energy as part of the city’s key push to meet its ambitious goals to become carbon neutral.

Every day, trucks unload 10,000 tons of waste at the CTR waste treatment plant in Seropedica, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) northwest of Rio de Janeiro.

The plant turns household and industrial food and yard waste, which once would have rotted in a landfill – creating a major source of climate-change-spurring emissions – into biogas that is sold to industries or to the state’s gas company.

The waste treatment plant, unusual in Latin America, can produce 20,000 cubic meters of purified gas an hour, according to Jose Henrique Monteiro Penido, the head of environmental sustainability at COMLURB, Rio’s waste management company.

“Everyone talks about recycling but the biggest environmental problem is the organic fraction of garbage,” he said.

Once in a landfill, rotting material releases methane that can, in the short term, drive climate change at a much faster pace than emissions from other sources, such as automobiles or air conditioners.

That gas, and the slurry left over from putrefying waste, “is the most serious problem,” Penido said.

Rio de Janeiro, part of the C40 Cities initiative – a network of cities pushing climate action – has committed to reducing its climate changing emissions by 20 percent between 2005 to 2020.

The city of about 6.7 million is also one of more than 70 cities worldwide that are aiming to become “carbon neutral” by 2050, meaning they will produce no more climate-changing emissions than they can offset by other means, such as planting carbon-absorbing trees.

Cities account for about three-quarters of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the United Nations, and consume more than two-thirds of the world’s energy.

That means whether they succeed or fail in curbing emissions will have a huge impact on whether the world’s goals to prevent the worst impacts of climate goals are met.

From planting trees to promoting renewable energy and cleaner methods of transport, such as electric cars and buses, each city is going about achieving its carbon neutral goals in different ways, and with varying degrees of success.

In Rio de Janeiro’s case, changes to waste treatment are responsible for about two-thirds of emissions reductions made so far, according to Jose Miguel Carneiro Pacheco, manager of climate change and sustainable development at the city’s department of conservation and environment.

Biogas production from the Seropedica plant alone accounts for a third of the reductions in emissions so far in Rio de Janeiro, Pacheco said.

Goals at risk?

Whether Rio de Janeiro will reach its emission reduction targets in full by 2020 is unclear – and the goal is at risk, officials and environmentalists say.

A lack of private investment and delays in large-scale public works have lowered the city government’s estimate of the emissions cuts possible by 2020 to 18 percent “if everything stays as it is”, Pacheco said.

The launch of an additional waste treatment center, for example, has been delayed, as has a new metro train line for the city, as well as installation of new high-capacity express bus lanes.

The 2020 targets could still be achieved, Pacheco said, but only if the delayed projects – or other efforts – push ahead, he said.

“We need to measure the emission reductions contained in the 2017-2020 strategic plan to see if we can achieve the remainder by 2020,” Pacheco said.

But the push for lower emissions comes as Rio struggles to recover from its worst financial crisis in decades, brought on in part by public corruption scandals and lower prices for its key export products, including oil.

That financial crunch has made efforts to attract private funding for clean energy projects and other emissions-reducing ideas harder, Pacheco said.

The city, for instance, failed to find a taker for a public tender to replace the city’s 430,000 street lights with energy-saving LED bulbs. It is now looking for a partner to install solar panels in about 1,500 schools, he said.

“The city’s economic situation is not favorable for these projects, which demand big investments,” he said.

Growing risks

Nationwide, environmentalists fear Brazil’s growing deforestation – a driver of climate change – will worsen under the right-leaning government of President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in January and has promised to open up more protected land for mining and agriculture.

Brazilians consider climate change the main threat to the country’s and the planet’s safety, above terrorism and the state of the economy, a 2017 study from the Washington-based Pew Research Center found.

For Mauro Pereira, executive director of the non-profit Defensores do Planeta, a youth-led environmental rights group based in Rio de Janerio, the city’s leaders are doing too little to keep pledges to curb emissions and ensure residents get a voice in decisions made.

“Until 2012, City Hall did well but not in the last years,” Pereira said in a telephone interview.

For instance, he said, when Rio hosted the 2016 summer Olympics, it had an agreement with the Olympic committee to plant 12 million tree seedlings in the city – and 24 million in the state as a whole – to compensate for the environmental impacts of the event.

But, to date, only about half of those – 5.5 million – have been planted in the city, Pereira said.

In a statement, Rio’s City Hall said it was “unaware” of the number cited by Defensores do Planeta and confirmed only a commitment to plant 13,500 trees in the Parque Radical de Deodoro park as an Olympic environmental legacy.

In addition, City Hall said the 24 million tree-planting target was proposed by the state of Rio de Janeiro but was re-evaluated and discarded after the state, the Olympic Committee and other bodies involved found that it was not feasible.

Pereira, however, said he had followed the negotiations for the Olympic games and that the targets were not dropped.

He said the city was doing well on some other environmental measures including improving waste treatment, adding bike lanes to curb emissions and installing solar energy in schools.

He said he was concerned about the effects of climate change in Rio, especially in its poorer areas, and urged city officials to carry out more risk assessments.

Almost every year, torrential rainstorms trigger fatal mudslides and flooding in mountaintop neighborhoods in and around Rio de Janeiro.

The flatter and largely poor zones to the west of downtown also face a growing heat threat, as climate change brings more extreme temperatures, he said.

“The West zone is very hot – 48, 49 degrees, and that’s in addition to torrential rains. We’re already worried about the rainy season from January onwards,” he said. “We just want City Hall to comply with its international agreements for the city to become an example for the world.”

 
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