♪ john: tonight on pbs news weekend, israel's offensive turns to southern gaza, raising the death toll, as hopes for a renewed ceasefire dwindle. then, what a new methane deal, reached at u.n.'s climate summit today, means for the future of climate change. and, how doctors are navigating the new abortion landscape, almost a year and a half after the supreme court dismantled roe wade. >> if it becomes clear that they're leaning towards a termination, i have to say,

unfortunately, this is illegal in the state of wisconsin, and if this is what you choose to pursue, then we'll have to give you information on how to pursue this out of state it feels like i'm abandoning my patients in saying that. ♪ announcer: major funding provided by -- >> consumer cellular, this is sam. i thought i would let you know you get nationwide coverage with no contract. have a nice day. announcer: 10 with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour. ♪

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. john: good evening. i'm john yang. tonight, hopes for another pause in the fighting in gaza any time soon have dimmed considerably. israeli prime minister benjamin netenyahu ordered his negotiators home from qatar, saying the talks there had hit a dead end. since fighting resumed, at least 200 palestinians have been killed, bringing the death toll since october 7 to more than 15,200. those numbers from the hamas run gaza health ministry. meanwhile, the focus of israel's renewed aerial bombardment of gaza has shifted from the north.

>> in the southern gaza city, khan younis, streets are engulfed in smoke. the israeli military has dropped leaflets urging residents of the city and the surrounding area to evacuate further south but the beleaguered gazans say there's nowhere to go. they seek refuge wherever they can find it, like this makeshift camp outside al-nasser hospital. nihad abu habell: we fled the north, and before coming here we went to various places, there is no safe place in gaza. abu wael nasrallah: our houses are gone, our property is gone, our money is gone, some died, some handicapped in the hospital. what is left to cry for and then they tel hospital. what is left to cry for and then they tell us we will get aid, where is it? reporter: as the wounded fill

al-nasser hospital, today that aide, 50 trucks full, according to the palestine red crescent society entered through the rafah crossing along the egyptian border. the first relief since the ceasefire ended friday. yesterday, israel had blocked aid from getting into gaza. since fighting resumed, the israeli defense forces says it struck over 400 hamas targets across gaza. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu today said the fighting would not stop until israel met its objectives. benjamin netanyahu: we will continue the war until we achieve all its goals and it's impossible to achieve those goals without the ground operation. the ground operation was necessary to bring the results until now and it is necessary to bring the results moving forward. reporter: with hopes of a renewed ceasefire dissipating, vice president kamala harris spoke with reporters in dubai and laid out the the biden administration's vision for peace after the war. >> five principles guide our approach for post conflict gaza:

no forcible displacement, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, no reduction in territory and no use of gaza as a platform for terrorism. we want to see a unified gaza and west bank under the palestinian authority and palestinian voices and aspirations must be at the center of this work. reporter: mark regev, a top adviser to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, says israel wants a security buffer zone inside gaza along the border with israel to further separate, to ensure there will never be a repeat of the october 7 slaughter. mark regev: you won't have a situation in the future where you can have hamas terrorists on the border, directly on the border, positioned just to cross over and kill our people again. there will have to be security arrangements on the ground to prevent that from happening. reporter: in tel aviv and across

israel, thousands rallied demanding the release of the 136 hostages israel says are still being held by hamas. hamas leaders told al jazeera today that no more hostages would be exchanged with israel until the war is over. john: at the united nation's cop28 climate conference in dubai, vice president harris pledged $3 billion toward a global fund to help poorer nations adapt to climate change. the united states also committed to doubling energy efficiency and tripling the use of renewable energy by 2030. harris said the time for action is at hand. >> the urgency of this moment is clear. the clock is no longer just ticking, it is banging. and we must make up f lost time. we must treat the climate crisis as the existential threat that it truly is. john: officials also announced a major new initiative aimed at

getting methane emission to near zero by 2030. in atlanta, a protester is in critical condition tonight, after setting themself on fire outside the israeli consulate. a security guard who tried to intervene was also burned. police said they found a palestinian flag at the scene, and called it "an act of extreme political protest." and, a bavarian blizzard has dropped record snow amounts on much of germany, austria, the czech republic, and switzerland. the storm knocked out power to thousands, and snarled travel across the region, grounding flights, burying highways, and forcing mass transit to close. a new pledge to reduce methane emissions around the world. how abortion restrictions are affecting the care doctors can give patients in wisconsin. announcer: this is pbs news weekend from wbt a studios in

washington -- weta studios in washington, home of the newshour. john: at the cop28 summit in dubai today, 50 oil and gas companies representing about 40 percent of global production pledged to reduce methane emissions to "near zero" by 2030. methane is a byproduct of oil and gas production that can trap 80 times as much heat as carbon dioxide in the short term. the companies, which include industry giants like exxonmobil, shell and bp, say they will achieve this by plugging leaks at their facilities, and ending the practice of burning off excess gas with flares. at the same time, the biden administration announced new rules to enforce major elements of the agreement in this country. earlier, i spoke with fred krupp, the president of the environmental defense fund, who is at cop28. i asked him what makes this deal so important? >> i have been at this a long time. we have never had as good a day

for the climate as we had today. first the methane rules. second we have 50 companies representing 40% of global oil production pledging to eliminate methane pollution and third, we saw an announcement from the u.s. and china, th have agreed to incorporate methane in the future into their pledges internationally. methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. reductions now that will happen as a result of the three actions mean storms will be less ferocious, temperatures will be lower, than they would otherwise be over the next 10 years thanks to the actions pledged today. john: is this a long-term solution? >> we have to both do methane to

reduce temperatures short-term and we cannot stop working, in fact we have to accelerate work on eliminating carbon dioxide. the oil and gas industry took this one step. they have to do more than this. we have to move away from reliance, dependency on fossil fuels as quickly as we can. while we are still using them, we have to eliminate this very powerful greenhouse gas, methane. john: this agreement is voluntary. oil companies have to do what they promise. a lot of environmental groups don't like that. they say there is no accountability mechanism or guarantee the companies will follow through. >> it's good to be skeptical of pledges at the cop. a lot have been pledges have been made at this conference. in this pledge, we structured it

to have accountability built in, so the oil and gas companies are agreeing to report their emissions by monitoring them, then sending them to an international, independent third-party. in addition to that, bloomberg philanthropies today announced a major $25 million gift to the environmental defense fund and a stand up to accountability partnership that will make data transparent, so we can see exactly who it is leading the pledge and who is not. reporter: there is no teeth. you are relying on public shaming to publicize they are missing goals? >> turns out, oil companies, in order to stay in business, need public support, a license to operate. there is more teeth than that. a couple weeks ago, the eu passed new methane regulations

that anticipate within a few years, they will put in place import standards that require companies to meet this sort of cleanup. this cleanup is not incremental. the average company that has signed up will have to reduce methane pollution by 80% to 90%, not by far away dates of 2050, but by 2030. giving these measurements to an independent international third-party, and methane sat, the defense fund project, will look at 80% infrastructure worldwide multiple times a week. that is how we will know whether companies are meeting standards, then the purchasers, like the eu and japan will be able to enforce them. john: the biden administration,

the epa announced rules on methane. how do these work together? >> the administration rules are the strongest on the planet. that will not only help clean up the u.s. but at the cop, i've been meeting with oil companies from developing nations. most of the questions they've asked me have been, what is that epa regulation coming out? what are the monitoring requirements? because the u.s. is the biggest oil and gas producer in the world, other countries and companies look to our regulation to set the bar for their practices. it's plugging leaks, when the compressors heels where out, compressors leaking methane, you have to replace them, you have to regularly look for and fix leaks. this is not rocket science. this is the companies, they should already be doing it. 90% reduction is a big deal. john: is the agreement to reach

the lower levels, essentially bring it to near zero at 2030 or are there other specific things plugging methane leaks would stop? >> the agreement is performance oriented. these companies are leaking two or 3% of the methane they take out of the ground, natural gas is methane. the agreement requires near zero defined as .2%, going from 2% to .2%, you get that 80% reduction. the reductions in this pollutant mean we will reduce pollution in the next 10 years and feel that benefit, we will able to reduce temperatures from what we would otherwise expense. john: do you think this year will be the time they finally address fossil fuels and dealing with them? either an agreement to reduce them or eventually eliminate their use?

>> well, i don't know that that will happen. this year, there has been an agreement by many countries, over 100 countries, to triple the construction of renewable energy and double energy efficiency by 2030. we need those things in order to be able to rapidly get away from fossil fuel. i don't know the language of, do we phase it out or get out of it completely by when? i don't think that is likely. john: fred krupp, cop 28 summit, thank you. >> thank you john. ♪ john: while the number of legal abortions has gone up nationwide since the supreme court overturned roe v wade, a recent report from a group that

supports reproductive rights says there have been sharp declines in states that imposed new restrictions on abortion access. one of those states, wisconsin, saw around 7000 fewer abortions in the year following the court's decision, than the state's annual average. marisa wohcheck of pbs wisconsin spoke with doctors there about the effect on their work and their patients. >>hen i got the results, i knew what i wanted to do. it was really hard emotionally. i was devastated. i wanted that baby. reporter: jenn vollstedt is a former labor and delivery nurse in milwaukee. at 12 weeks pregnant vollstedt was told something wasn't right. at 19 weeks pregnant, she found out she and her unborn child were at risk. jenn vollstedt: i knew that if i carried that pregnancy to term, i was putting my own health at risk. i also knew that my baby, if she survived to term, would only suffer. jenn vollstedt made her

decision, while abortion was still legal. the cascade of events following the u.s. supreme court's ruling, overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, hit states like wisconsin the hardest, creating a near total abortion ban in the state one year ago. christopher ford: we have yet to see what systemic consequences this law will have. reporter: health care providers like christopher ford, a milwaukee-based emergency medicine physician, found themselves in legal limbo, when the default legal standing reverted back to a law from 1849. it says destroying the life of an unborn child is a felony except to save the life of the mother. christopher ford: we are in a situation where that interpretation of a law from 1849 is really a gray area. kristin lyerly: we didn't even know that germs caused disease in 1849. reporter: before roe v wade was overturned, dr. kristin lyerly,

an obgyn from green bay, counseled patients at one of the few planned parenthood clinics in wisconsin that provided abortions. following the decision, she, doctor ford and doctor jenn jury mcintosh, a maternal fetal medicine physician in milwaukee joined a lawsuit challenging the law. jenn jury mcintosh: now we're operating this narrow channel of providing the best care and not committing malpractice and being careful not to break a law. these pregnant people either have high-risk conditions themselves, so medical complications, but on the flip side, we also take care of fetuses, so get the most family-centered outcome that we can. reporter: prior to the supreme court's ruling, wisconsin patients and physicians had more options when it came to making decisions about reproductive health care. kristin lyerly: we would have conversations about what all their options were. we would talk about everything. sometimes we would connect them with prenatal care. sometimes we would connect them

with adoption services. sometimes they would go home and think about it and they just wouldn't return for that second visit, but often they did. reporter: now these doctors are managing a much different reality. jenn jury mcintosh: if it becomes clear that they're leaning towards a termination, i have to say, unfortunately, this is illegal in the state of wisconsin, and if this is what you choose to pursue, then we'll have to give you information on how to pursue this out of state -- it feels like i'm abandoning my patients in saying that. reporter: some physicians, like doctor lyerly, left wisconsin, so thecan continue to provide reproductive care without fear of prosecution. kristin lyerly: i have the joy of working in rural minnesota and northern arizona on the navajo reservation. so in a way, it's very satisfying. but the truth is, i want to be home. reporter: for those who stayed, they must now navigate a law that many doctors feel is unclear. jenn jury mcintosh: it's intrinsically vague, which then

causes physicians to potentially second-guess, like is this risky enough? because everyone who practices medicine knows it can be very gray for a while and then become very black and white. the longer you wait, the longer, the worse the outcomes become in general. christopher ford: we've heard reports in other states that have very strict abortion bans like we here in wisconsin in which patients that have been told to wait in the car until they become even more unstable in order to present to the emergency department, so at that point in time, they can do something about it. now, of course that's an egregious example and it's something that we don't aspire to. however, that is someone's interpretation of the law. kristin lyerly: there was a time when i was in minnesota where someone presented. she was bleeding. she was 21 weeks pregnant with a desired pregnancy but she was bleeding so much thashe had to go to the operating room right away, and i had to perform an abortion, and i couldn't help but to think to myself, if this was happening to me in wisconsin, i would be terrified about what the next steps would

be, about what the implications for my future, my career would be. reporter: physicians worry not only about the consequences today, but those yet to come. christopher ford: what i'm seeing over and over and over again is this getting worse over time, and a lot of that has to do with the access of health care, with the access of, you know, care to obstetrics and gynecology. and a lot of the voices that are at the table right now don't see these patients and they don't have any medical background, but they're making these decisions. jenn jury mcintosh: i just want to do my job. the fact that politics are trying to be present in my exam room, present in the back of my mind as i'm looking at a patient and talking to that patient and their family feels crazy to me because, really, we should just be providing the best evidence-based medical care that we can that's right for that

patient and right for their family. reporter: and for jenn vollstedt, she hopes in the future wisconsinites will be able to navigate these difficult decisions without the barriers in place today. jenn vollstedt: now when i look back, i feel so recovered and healed. i also wouldn't have my son if i didn't have this abortion because of the timing if i had to carry it to term. julian, he is, he just turned six and he is one of the most joyful and curious people i've ever met. the more we try to focus on is that right or wrong or is that okay, the more we're focused on making choices for other people when we're not involved in their health care and we're not medical professionals.

reporter: for pbs news weekend, i'm marisa wojcik in milwaukee, wisconsin. ♪ john: cdc data shows life expectcy went up for the first time since the pandemic but is still lagging where it was before covid. all that and more is on our web site. that is the news weekend for this saturday. thanks for joining us. see you tomorrow. announcer: major funding for pbs news weekend provided by -- >> consumer cellular. pocket tile? i thought i would let you know, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that's everything. have a nice day. ♪

announcer: and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. ♪ this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

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