to say it was awesome commercial spaceflight is now entering a new era by successfully reusing rockets and modules space 6 is making exploration economically viable later this year a mission will take 4 citizen astronauts into orbit the 1st mission of its kind in history i began. miami florida. a look at the main stories now india has reported the world's highest daily tally of infections for a 2nd straight day with more than 332000 cases hospitals have been reporting shortages of beds oxygen and medicine and then in a separate development a fire has killed at least 14 people at a hospital in the hardest hit state of maharashtra. thousands of people have attended the funeral of chad's long serving president idriss deby he died from

injuries sustained last weekend after rebels launched an offensive from libya several foreign leaders attended the funeral including the french president emanuel macron in his tribute macron said france will not let anybody threaten chad. this sort of course the people of the region enjoy a peace pact with france we have to make sure the pact lives but of liberty and independence france will not let anybody question or threaten today or tomorrow charlie stability in territorial integrity for us will be you know to ensure that the promise which was made will for all parties stability inclusiveness. and democratic transition this is what from want. in our other top stories this hour hopes have been fading for the $53.00 crew members of the indonesian submarine that went missing on wednesday oxygen supplies on board are now calculated to have run out so much crews are working in waters around the island of bali with several

nations lending their help. jailed russian opposition leader alexina valley is ending his hunger strike after $24.00 days the valley's own supporters and doctors that urged him to end the protests because it is deteriorating health he is demanding access to his own doctor to address numbness in his legs and arms prominent kremlin critic is serving a jail sentence for breaking parole conditions by traveling to germany for treatment after being poisoned and you malaria vaccine is being held as a possible game changer in the fight to eliminate the disease the oxford institute jab is 77 percent effective in stopping infections it's now entering larger human trials to rule out any side effects malaria kills half a 1000000 people every year many of them children those are the headlines this hour that for myself and the teen here in london will be back tomorrow counting the cost is the program coming up next. it's a very bleak picture for

a lot of americans out there a white supremacy impacts all of us if you're putting more money into the hands of someone 1st taking money out of the hands of other workers their own goes to their camp he becomes a us versus them this is the deal about constraining a nuclear program the bottom line the big questions on out is the. hello i'm teddy navigator this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your look at the world of business and economics this week the climate emergency the price of going green and why it doesn't need to cost the earth so what is the world waiting for also this week new zealand an economic test bed for inflation in the ninety's as the world's central banks watching closely for its next experiment this time it's

targeting surging house prices. iraq has no gold deposits yet it's become one of the country's top exports billions exported to turkey we find out why . was a nation responsible for the biggest share of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere today president biden has pledged more money and made new commitments to fight climate change after his predecessor walked away from commitments to reduce harmful emissions that threatened to wreak havoc to global weather patterns rising sea levels and displacing people washington is making climate change a priority and it once the number one and number 3 big emitters china and india to contribute more to the fight was a pandemic has proven where there's a will there's a way and money is no object in fact the global cost of a transition to renewable energy by 2050 would be $73.00 trillion dollars that's

according to stanford university which researchers believe could be recovered over a period of 7 years and there's added benefits the shift to a 0 carbon global economy would create $28600000.00 more full time jobs than if nations continue their current reliance on fossil fuels well now if the united states wants to make the transition to renewables over the next 9 years it could the cost would be $4.00 trillion dollars or a little more than the cost of $2.00 wars in afghanistan that number comes from energy consultants with mackenzie but even they acknowledge that would not be feasible because the social and political issues well one of the biggest factors is what to do with businesses that emitting contributes to climate change they would need time to transition otherwise the global financial system that includes banks pensions and insurance could be sitting on losses of 20 trillion dollars but there is a mechanism that penalizes big polluters by making them buy credits to offset their

emissions it's called carbon trading so you may have heard of deals like this where iran must test lascelles carbon credits generating a revenue of one point $58000000000.00 in 2020 and this. vokes wagon in china credits from the maker of electric cars and then there are oil companies like b.p. that are keen to dump assets to reduce their carbon footprint it's sold its alaska oil fields to a little known privately held company called bill cor for $4600000000.00 the problem is the world doesn't see a drop in emissions they still exist but a publicly traded company with shareholders and activists has now offloaded verifiable emissions to a company that has little incentive to declare them so this is what we're going to do we'll pick up on carbon trading right after this report from christmas salumi in new york that's where authorities are promising to have 70 percent of their electricity come from renewable sources by 2030 it's one of the most ambitious

clean energy plans in the country. in the heart of new york's it's the legendary bay gallus once the world's largest electric generating unit its owner ries light power now wants to make it the cleanest with plans to build the largest battery facility in the country right here in 2 years a storage facility for renewable energy what are the challenges that you face to meet this deadline in terms of c.e.o. clint plummer acknowledges it won't be easy our challenge is new york shows it is also the country's challenge in the world challenges how do we transition from a city that's run primarily on fossil fuels for as long as you know what just a day to one that's. now running on clean energy infrastructure i mean order. they're taking their dirtiest carbon spewing oil and gas fired generators off line to make way for the batteries they'll also need transmission lines to tie into wind

and solar farms outside the city but currently renewables make up just 2 percent of downstate energy new york is the time to go away in itself off of fossil fuels at the same time it's taking another major source of carbon free electricity offline indian point nuclear power plant in 2019 this facility alone was responsible for 13 percent of the state's power. while environmentalist long pushed for its closure some are now arguing nuclear power is currently the only carbon free technology able to replace fossil fuels they point out the state is building more natural gas facilities to make up the difference and if you look at the examples of germany and vermont in california there are small studies that have shown that when you get rid of nuclear in general air pollution our carbon emissions actually increase so others say the switch to renewables has to start happening for new york power to be carbon free by 2040 right. now. so

we know. under way to make them. less expensive or liable and were possible smaller all agree the need to keep the lights on and eliminate fossil fuels mean there must be change on the horizon kristen salumi al-jazeera new york. so that's just one story of the energy transition and as we said earlier many companies are using carbon credits to aid their transition to renewables but are they fit for purpose well my next guess is nicollette bartlett's who's the global director of climate change environments monitoring advisory c.d.p. thanks for speaking to us on counting the costs your latest research finds how about half of the world's biggest 500 companies are indeed factoring carbon accounting and their business plans but let's just look at the cup half empty for a moment at this stage in our climate emergency it's not really good enough is it.

no indeed i mean we have seen an 80 percent jump in the last 5 years of companies internalizing carbon costs and those driving different disinvestment sessions but we need to see a much higher proportion of them doing so as you just articulated. carbon pricing ultimately places a monetary value on carbon itself and whether it's in through regulation or whether companies do it themselves their aim is to trigger a change in investment decisions and of course there's a direct link between companies doing this and the regulation in the market we've also seen that it does drive change when it's used so it goes hand in hand with some of the emission reduction activities that companies are doing so we see a direct correlation those companies that use the price and those companies that are setting science based targets investing in renewable energy it's satcher directly correlated at the same time i have it's interesting to see you know this

year we've seen a big spike in for example the european emissions trading scheme in terms of prices the median company the price the median price of can we see companies reporting to us that they use internally is about 20 $8.00 now this is below where the e.u. e.t.s. spiked to this year so it seems to me that not only more companies need to do it but the prices that they use need to increase so let me ask you this the cost of renewables are falling and now is the time to press ahead and leave struggling companies behind anything else other than that will just look like socialising their failure as well to. absolutely absolutely of course it's not just about the new rules and it's not just about carbon pricing regulation per se there are a myriad of regulation signals that are coming down the market fast in many countries almost all countries right now whether it be targets whether it be standards whether it whether it be incentives whether it be investment past

patterns changing these are changing the way in which we need to invest in the future of the assets we make in the future we've seen a continuous increase in carbon pricing itself regulation over the last many years where about $64.00 jurisdictions have a carbon price right now whether at a state or provincial level or at a national level and of course china announced that it will be launching an emissions trading system in 2021 but we need this quicker and we needed faster and in terms of rid of of carbon pricing itself it is incredibly helpful for set such as cement and steel where renewables and clean energy will not be the only solution to to the technology challenge as they have you also have this announcement by the e.u. that it plans to have a bullshit tax adjustment which means that the cost of carbon will be included in

the cost of those products if they brought in from outside of the european union and i think this is also really interesting and something that companies need to watch out for all look we were mentioning b.p. earlier on and b.p. has sold its alaskan oil business the new buyer is a private company so this is good for b.p. but those are missing still exists who is actually monitoring the private buyer well this is a very interesting question and of course we may see more of this is the trend in the future we see that with a significant number of fossil fuel assets right now going into private hands of private equity i think what we're seeing is we obviously need regulation and we need monitoring now we have increased scrutiny on those. companies who are listed and we need to now start shine the spotlight on the companies that are not listed and regulation is vital of course but all of the monitoring that needs to happen by n.g.o.s by civil society by by the media and particularly by the investment community themselves we work with over 600 investors that have about 110 trillion

in assets and over the last 20 years we've been working with them to get companies to measure and manage these type of emissions rates and lolla many anxious apologies but i mean look at banks for a moment so while they talk about nigeria targets that has a really stopped them from continuing to finance core oil as well as gas ventures absolutely we have another piece of analysis coming out in about a week's time which really looks at what banks are disclosing to us and why you see a significant number of banks saying they're lining their own internal practices and if the investment and lending decisions with the paris agreement or with a below 2 degree world this is not yet translated into a shift in their portfolios we need to see that and we need to see it quickly i think not enough focus has been put on the banking community in the space so we have the momentum now we have the scrutiny and i think civil society and other activists that's where they need to be focused the financing of these things needs

to stop and banks play a major role ok nicholai bartlet thank you so much for speaking to us from london thank you very much now before we leave this topic one more report for you and it's important on so many levels because china is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases president xi jinping has pledged to fight climate change but the government continues to build new coke plants one of the leading sources of carbon emissions katrina you reports from dodging in shanxi province. toxic smoke leaking from power plants and factories is a common sight in santee the northwest importance has for decades powered tiny economic growth primarily by day coal. it's contributed to the nation becoming the world's top lucia responsible for roughly one 3rd of global carbon emissions. the coal industry employs most of the people who live here. pollution has been polluting for decades shut down all the factories what are we going to do everyone

who works for the factories. last year this region produced about 1100000000 tons of coal ton is reliance on burning coal as its main source of energy is its biggest obstacle to lowering carbon emissions the government is struggling to find ways to curb coal without affecting jobs or economic growth pollution caused by burning fossil fuels regularly shrouds the capital in heavy smog beijing has pledged to peak carbon emissions by 2030 and eliminate them all together by 2060 but it's yet to detail how exactly it plans to achieve this it's not only about commitment is all about what we actually do right in the next 5 years we expect china can include more concrete policies and to give us a more clear roadmap of how they're going to achieve these 2 carbon targets increasing the use of renewable energy sources is crucial china is already the

world's largest producer of wind and solar power it's also the biggest market for electric vehicles the government has tightened regulations to pressure calm make it into transitioning away from gas but many say that's not enough us climate and boy john kerry was in shanghai trying to convince authorities to do more. for a big country with 1400000000 people. some countries are asking china to do more on climate change the free this is not very realistic researchers say china must close down more than 500 coal fired power plants in the next decade to meet its climate pledges but it continues to approved. new ones at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world the shan she government is planning to close down some old factories here and build what it says. whole facilities some parts of china at least it seems the road to clean energy will be long and

slow. she taught in china. now think new zealand what comes to mind the all blacks rugby team its maori culture and its picturesque landscape and yes its exceptional handling of the pandemic but it's also been known as a leader in the field of economics back in 1989 new zealand central bank was the 1st to commit to a specific target for consumer price inflation vend the biggest threat to the world economy at the time there was great opposition to the idea but inflation fell from 8 to 2 percent over 2 years and inflation targets were adopted by most central banks to tame runaway prices so one surprise you that the prime minister just sent to our dern has tossed the central bank to limit the rise of house prices an important issue globally when you consider despite the pandemic house prices have

soared in new zealand the average house price increased by 24.3 percent to $826000.00 new zealand dollars and march 2021 a record high for the country. now this is such an important issue globally on so many levels so let's get some analysis from auckland we're joined by bernie smith who's the chief executive officer of the monticello your housing trust thanks so much for speaking to us on counting the cost the prime minister to send arthur and wasn't elected on the promise of housing affordable housing how's that going. it's not being very very well for the government to go. and frank the 4 year is. a safe prices have reputable a increased to the extent that it's actually creating homelessness and costing the government a $1000000.00 a day just a maybe unseen transitional hasn't so how did it get to the point where there is

a chronic housing shortage with this present government would suggest that it was the previous. national government. but they know as well as we know on the ground that. decades. in the miking a by scouting once. the right and the left have that a real desire to have. a market driven economy because it means a healthy economy they haven't been building the houses at the level that they did in the fifty's and sixty's. a you know the population has gone from 2000000 to 5000000 a. we just in the situation and now that same source impossible to generate him but i'm sure we wrote something so is it possible to pinpoint one reason or several reasons behind the house price rises it is

a speculation the central banks printing money building regulations high immigrations what is it or is it a combination of all of those it's a combination of. all of those speculators for instance if i've got a $1000000.00 on the bank day. i going to beth point 5 percent interest which is very little written they could buy a house for a $1000000.00. and flick it in. a couple of years some in some cases they can flip it in months and might hundreds of thousands . and 8 probably that taking advantage of. the lack of supply of housing and of course the government is assisting low income families with income related raymond.

speculation has continued. they synchro bank as much as the government has desired to. hender it in the same solve. stop a no slowing down on the housing market a central bank a spice to be tightly independent and its mind draw evers' to ensure that the economy stays healthy so really the government has no swi on what it does it can give advice but accountants truck what happened to the government $2000000000.00 plan to build more housing can rebuild. jamie bill became the laughingstock of the of museum directly because. we built was trumpeted as part of the election it came time

to build 200000 houses. and so that the teen years 10000 a year. finished year and they built a been out $300.00. and of those $300.00 that were barely i want to say half of the use of a building them in the wrong like kind sions the price benchmarks were incorrect so they've taken that taiga to why totally and now instead of having inspirational policies as they go they gave me though that i have got what they call foundational. policies are not the words i would not going to sit in the targets or in this for the long whom and only now are they starting to get a little bit of traction on that on the k.v. build development but we're talking about that one of 2000 and we're not talking

about tens of thousands at this point rights and do you think that it would be possible for the central bank to control house prices inflation is there's no doubt that they. are. a central bank could control if they say chinese but the difficulty is that they need to manage the economy as a hall and they don't say it as i understand it and it is the responsibility it's really the government's responsibility by ensuring that the government pozole the labor as it possibly came to ensure that it has a name. that is a right. to every individual in this country many countries across the world that everyone has an opportunity whether it's rain to over whether it's. pages

and the government's just not doing it because that becoming more central and i believe that the more focused on being re-elected in a couple of years than what they have got in the same sort of paying fica stay on the needs of famers that appalling and don imus and us through no fault of their own bernie's method the chief executive officer of the month to sicilia housing trust thank you so much for speaking to us from okrent rares a dove thank you and finally gold has become one of iraq's top exports despite there being no gold deposits and the country in 2020 iraq exported nearly $8000000000.00 worth to turkey alone so what's the secret asama been reports from baghdad. in an old baghdad bookshop the same melting pot has been used for decades. now job i mean converts old gold into 21 carrot bars in the chemical process each element is carefully measured and according to their

weight he's been doing it for years but business is not what it was before the 2003 u.s. invasion. now with rising demand for newer and final designs most of his orders go to turkey or gulf states or local goldsmiths it's difficult to compete with modern machinery cheap electricity and labor and it meant i don't have the naomi we hope the government supports us with new machines we want support for the workshops and we demand to stop exporting colt. gold is now among iraq's top 3 exports after oil to trade with turkey alone has reached nearly $8000000000.00 in 2022 point 5000000000 in $21000.00 iraq doesn't produce gold but imports it from other countries and gold traders export it for processing into jewelry so not only were highly and the local gold industry has died not just but although coal industries

there's a lack of electricity iraq is not attractive for investment and not business friendly to traders and business men go to turkey in other countries because it is better quality and cheaper. so how much gold goes in and out of iraq apparently there is no clear data we asked the ministry of trade who directed us to the ministry of finance who told us to us the central bank which in turn said that data must be kept by the ministry of planning required i love to be. in fact this issue of how much is imported is not our job we only plan for the quality and legal imports the organization for quality and standards monitors goldsmiths all over iraq also we have offices and border crossings and airports to guarantee quality and reduce smuggling deep rooted corruption and a weak economy makes it easier for black market operators to move things across borders diplomatic sources told al jazeera the due to lack security of crossings and more listeners is gold being smuggled from neighboring countries. and iraq's

economic uncertainty leads to increased local demand despite the current coronavirus pandemic. this bar of gold costs about $55000.00 in today's market because of iraq security many families are investing in precious metals rather than keeping their money in dollars. from glittering religious sites to important social occasions iraqis have had a centuries old relationship with gold and the precious commodity is now a major economic entity they want the government to ensure it adds to the economy rather than taking away from it some of the jar with al-jazeera fact that and that's our show for this week but there's more for you online at al-jazeera dot com slash c t c that'll take you straight to our page which has entire episodes for you to catch up on. i'm sorry you know brigades are you going to watch in counting the cost thanks for joining us the news on al-jazeera is next.

in the 1st thailand's of home in mesopotamia her with the 1st settlements formed the cradle of civilization iraqi people who've depended on the tigris and euphrates for centuries can no longer make a living on rivers blighted by womb and pollution algis their world reveals how the manmade decline of one of history's most famed ancient environments is leaving its people struggling to survive iraq's dying rivers. she's seen a family man politicized by the forces of nature. film nova 4 year olds. a kenyan farm and documents his struggle for his community survival and builds a template for global action on climate change. to see the climate diaries a witness documentary on al-jazeera. we understand the differences and

similarities of cultures across the world so no matter what you see with the news and current affairs that matter to you. already. scenes of desperation outside indian hospitals overrun by record breaking coverage infections and unable to get enough lifesaving oxygen. while in the united states a health panel recommends the resumption of johnson and johnson's coronavirus vaccine despite a small risk of blood clots. color from doha everyone on come out.