Latest news with #Hayhoe
Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Full cost of failed pandemic- PPE finally revealed after major fraud probe
The Covid counter-fraud commissioner uncovered the £1.4billion figure in the first phase of his investigation into wasteful Tory spending during the Covid-19 pandemic Failed pandemic-era PPE contracts cost the British taxpayer £1.4billion. The Covid counter-fraud commissioner uncovered the figure in the first phase of his probe into wasteful Tory spending during the pandemic. Some £762million is unlikely to ever be recovered, as the Sunday Mirror revealed. These failures saw substandard PPE, including gowns, masks and visors, not inspected for two years, meaning public money could no longer be recouped. Most of the wasted money went on surgical gowns, with more than half (52%) of them being non-compliant. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is now urgently trying to claw back £468million that could still be recovered, which she wants to reinvest in public services and local communities. The next phase of Tom Hayhoe's investigation will look into fraud and error in other pandemic spending programmes such as furlough, bounce-back loans, Business Support Grants and Rishi Sunak 's Eat Out to Help Out scheme. Mr Hayhoe's final report is due to conclude in December. Recovery action has so far resulted in £182million being returned to the public purse, with some PPE suppliers having been referred to the National Crime Agency for suspected fraud. Ms Reeves said: 'The country is still paying the price for the reckless handling of Covid contracts which saw taxpayer pounds wasted and criminals profit from the pandemic. This investigation and plan to recover public money underlines our commitment to ensure that every penny spent during the pandemic is fully accounted for.' The Chancellor confirmed her Covid fraud crackdown at Labour 's annual conference last September. At the time, she said: 'I won't turn a blind eye to rip-off artists and fraudsters. 'I won't turn a blind eye to those who used a national emergency to line their own pockets. I won't let them get away with it. That money belongs in our police, it belongs in our health service, and it belongs in our schools.' In December, she tasked Mr Hayhoe with the job of trying to claw back lost money. The Tory Government has always insisted that it was operating in a crisis, with global PPE shortages driving up prices for kit that was essential for frontline workers. Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the Covid Inquiry in March: "I have been subject to enormous amounts of conspiracy theories about what went on here, when in fact what happened was so many people working as hard as they could to save lives, and they bought more PPE as a result. And therefore people are alive who would otherwise be dead."
Japan Today
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismisses report authors
FILE - Marquetta Wheeler, right, with Samaria Williams and Jemaria Shaw, walk through flood waters as they leave their home on Marietta Drive in Hopkinsville, Ky., April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File) By SETH BORENSTEIN Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration's dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump's White House. Earlier this week, Trump's Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said. 'We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,' AGU President Brandon Jones said. 'It's more about ensuring that science continues.' Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future. With the assessment 'we're better equipped to deal with the future,' Bamzi said. 'We can't be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.' Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report 'is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.' Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said 'people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it's the size of the storm sewer pipes they're installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat." They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said. The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what's happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels. Jones said he hopes the societies' version of the assessment can be done in just one year. The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is 'harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security." In 2018, during Trump's first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018's two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any. 'I think they'll put out something that will, like, it'll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,' Wuebbles told The Associated Press. Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies' efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations. 'We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?' Wuebbles said. Storms and wildfires don't care if it's a red state or a blue state, Hayhoe said. 'Climate change affects us all,' Hayhoe said. 'It doesn't matter how we vote.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
02-05-2025
- Politics
Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismisses report authors
WASHINGTON -- Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration's dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump's White House. Earlier this week, Trump's Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said. 'We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,' AGU President Brandon Jones said. 'It's more about ensuring that science continues.' Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future. With the assessment 'we're better equipped to deal with the future,' Bamzi said. 'We can't be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.' Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report 'is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.' Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said 'people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it's the size of the storm sewer pipes they're installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat." They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said. The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what's happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels. Jones said he hopes the societies' version of the assessment can be done in just one year. The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is 'harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security." In 2018, during Trump's first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018's two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any. 'I think they'll put out something that will, like, it'll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,' Wuebbles told The Associated Press. Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies' efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations. 'We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?' Wuebbles said. Storms and wildfires don't care if it's a red state or a blue state, Hayhoe said. 'Climate change affects us all,' Hayhoe said. 'It doesn't matter how we vote.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismissed report authors
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration's dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump's White House. Earlier this week, Trump's Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said. 'We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,' AGU President Brandon Jones said. 'It's more about ensuring that science continues.' Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future. With the assessment 'we're better equipped to deal with the future,' Bamzi said. 'We can't be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.' Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report 'is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.' Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said 'people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it's the size of the storm sewer pipes they're installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat." They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said. The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what's happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels. Jones said he hopes the societies' version of the assessment can be done in just one year. The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is 'harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security." In 2018, during Trump's first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018's two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any. 'I think they'll put out something that will, like, it'll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,' Wuebbles told The Associated Press. Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies' efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations. 'We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?' Wuebbles said. Storms and wildfires don't care if it's a red state or a blue state, Hayhoe said. 'Climate change affects us all,' Hayhoe said. 'It doesn't matter how we vote.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
San Francisco Chronicle
02-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismisses report authors
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration's dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump's White House. Earlier this week, Trump's Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said. 'We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,' AGU President Brandon Jones said. 'It's more about ensuring that science continues.' Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future. With the assessment 'we're better equipped to deal with the future,' Bamzi said. 'We can't be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.' Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report 'is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.' Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said 'people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it's the size of the storm sewer pipes they're installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat." They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said. The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what's happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels. Jones said he hopes the societies' version of the assessment can be done in just one year. The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is 'harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security." In 2018, during Trump's first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018's two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any. 'I think they'll put out something that will, like, it'll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,' Wuebbles told The Associated Press. Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies' efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations. 'We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?' Wuebbles said. 'Climate change affects us all,' Hayhoe said. 'It doesn't matter how we vote.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
