Tuesday Morning News & Notes
Climate Change hits Chocolate. Avian Flu Concerns.
Editors Note - I hope everyone had a good Easter holiday or in Danish Påske ferie. I decided to push this week’s report to Tuesday morning this week to better coincide with everyone returning from holidays.
🍃Environment & Energy⚡️
🌍 🍫
As people snapped up Easter chocolate for treats and Easter egg hunts over the holiday weekend, cocoa is having a moment and it could mean chocolate prices may soon rocket upward. The price of cocoa bean prices has hit $10,000 per tonne, highs that have never been seen before on the commodity exchanges in London and New York. That has pushed cocoa bean prices past the value of copper.
The majority of the world’s cocoa beans come from the African countries of the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Cameroon, and Nigeria. All four have been hit by climate change-driven extreme weather as scorching heat and subsequent droughts have ravaged cocoa bean crops.
NGO Mighty Earth Senior Advisor Amourlaye Touré says soaring cocoa bean prices do not mean that cocoa bean farmers are suddenly seeing massive profits.
“The record-high cocoa prices will only slightly benefit the cocoa-producing countries themselves, as the raw material is transformed into a finished product after being exported.”
According to Nestle, owner of popular chocolate brands like Smarties and Kit Kat, it does mean that prices for the chocolate treats we all enjoy will soon become much more expensive.
“Cocoa prices have tripled over the past year. Although we have only passed on a fraction of the price increase to consumers in 2023, we may need to make responsible adjustments to prices in the future due to persistently high cocoa prices.”
🇩🇰
Mother Nature decided to wade into April Fools by playing for real. In Denmark, the Danish Meteorological Institute warned that from Monday to Tuesday some parts of the country could see an entire month’s worth of rainfall over a matter of hours. Up to 50 millimeters of rain is forecast in areas of Jutland, Sjælland, and Fyn. That is roughly the average amount of rainfall in Denmark for the entire month of April. By Monday night, DMI said 20mm had already come down with rain forecast to continue for most of the day on Tuesday.
In Northern Jutland, DMI warns the rain could fall as sleet, which will melt quickly presenting wet slushy conditions on the roads. The institute warns drivers to be careful and mind the conditions.
The wet weather is sadly all too familiar in Denmark. The country recorded its wettest year ever in 2023. The past winter was also soaking wet with flooding event after flooding event across the country. So far, spring looks to continue the trend.
🇸🇪
In Sweden, the Swedish weather agency (SMHI), issued a snowfall warning on Tuesday night for parts of Götaland and Svealand. It is forecasting up to 20 centimeters of snow in some areas. The agency has issued a yellow weather alert and is urging drivers to be very careful on the roads.
🇫🇮
Meanwhile, Finland, which saw a record-cold winter, is forecast to leap into springtime with positively balmy temperatures. In the Finnish capital of Helsinki, temperatures hit 17.7 degrees on Easter Monday, the warmest it has been so far this year. Temperatures were colder in the northern regions like Lapland.
🇫🇷
Europe continues to deal with wild weather. Storm Nelson hammered Spain last week causing massive waves and taking at least four lives. The violent storm swept across the Spanish coast before moving on to roll over the islands of Mallorca and Ibiza.
The storm also collided with western France damaging buildings and tearing off roofs. There were reports on French TV that the fierce winds spawned at least one small tornado.
🇩🇰
Electric vehicles are only as good as the charging infrastructure in place to service them. In that regard, charging stations are being installed across Denmark at a mind-numbing pace. In Kerteminde on Fyn, a town of about 24,000 people, there will soon be 178 charging stations in some 50 locations around the municipality.
The municipality had been doing all the work in building out its charging infrastructure but recently adopted a new strategy. It has begun leasing land to charging station operators who are then responsible for installation and maintenance over a ten-year period. So far, the initiative has earned the Kommune over five million Danish kroner (about $977,000 Cdn).
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The new light rail system in Odense seems to be overcoming a rough start. Almost 600,000 people used the light rail system to get around the city in February. That is a 30% increase in ridership compared to February of last year. The rail line operator credits new technologies for the increase especially introducing a QR code system to buy tickets. Since it has been put in place 65,000 tickets have been sold.
The light rail system opened in May of 2022 and was initially plagued with problems including people who lived nearby who bitterly complained it was too loud.
It set a passenger record in November of 2023 when 620,000 people used the system that month.
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Households across Denmark can look forward to lower electricity bills. Energy companies transition their network fees, the cost you pay for electricity to get to your power sockets, from winter to summer prices. That means a sizable reduction according to Daniel Skovsbo Erichsen, customer and development director at the public utility N1.
“The tariffs normally make up 20 to 25% of your total electricity bill, and that part of your bill can be halved in the transition between the winter and summer periods.”
That said, he adds that people must still be responsible energy users and ensure that they are being power-smart.
🇮🇹
Italy offers a ‘climate bonus’ offering people with lower incomes about €13,600 (roughly $19,800 Cdn) to scrap their old cars and buy electric. But the effort is falling woefully short as there are still some 11 million cars in Italy that are over 20 years old. The fossil fuel clunkers significantly contribute to awful air quality in parts of the country. In February, air pollution in Milan was at about par with Dhaka and New Delhi, two of the world’s most polluted cities.
Besides trying to encourage people to dump their old cars for an EV more and more Italian cities have banned fossil fuel vehicles from their downtown cores. They have also created low emissions zones where certain cars, depending on how old they are, are prohibited from driving.
🦠Outbreaks🦠
🇪🇺🇺🇸
Global health authorities continue to keep a close eye on the highly pathogenic avian flu, which has spread to new corners of the globe over the last few months. The bird flu is sweeping through penguins in Antarctica, a previously unheard-of event for bird populations in such a remote part of the world. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control noted the virus spread among penguins as being “of particular concern.”
The ECDC says since December 2nd, it has logged hundreds of reports of bird flu infections among farmed and wild bird populations. However, it added that numbers within Europe are “significantly lower” than in previous years possibly due to “some level of flock immunity in previously affected wild bird species.”
Health authorities are watching the evolution of the avian flu closely in the event it jumps outside of bird species especially if it shows signs of posing a threat to humans. For the first time ever in Europe, a mammal was confirmed to be infected with avian influenza. While the virus has also jumped to goats in the United States, where the bulk of avian flu activity seems to be centered.
The ECDC says as of March 12, there have been five confirmed human infections including one death. Three cases were in Cambodia and the other two, including the fatality, were in China. A sixth case was confirmed this week in the United States in a person who was in contact with infected dairy cows, the first dairy cattle to have ever been confirmed to have avian flu. The U.S. Centre for Disease Control continues to rate the risk of avian flu to humans as low.
In Europe, the ECDC seems to concur.
“The risk of infection with currently circulating avian H5 influenza viruses in Europe remains low for the general population in the EU/EEA. The risk of infection remains low to moderate for those occupationally or otherwise exposed to infected animals.”
In the Nordics, Denmark has reported seven outbreaks so far this year among populations of farmed birds. Norway has had two outbreaks and Sweden just one.
🌍 🦠
Negotiations have resumed to reach an international pandemic agreement. For the last two weeks, countries have been negotiating intensely to try and reach a pandemic accord in the aftermath of COVID sweeping across the globe taking millions of lives. The goal is to put most of the countries in the world on the same page to more effectively prepare for and respond to future pandemics.
This is the ninth round of negotiations in an attempt to reach a global pandemic accord.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:
“Our Member States are fully aware of how important the pandemic agreement is for protecting future generations from the suffering we endured through the COVID-19 pandemic. I thank them for their clear commitment to finding common ground and finalizing this historic agreement in time for the World Health Assembly.”
INB Bureau Co-Chair Dr Precious Matsoso said there is a lot riding on these negotiations.
“There is clear recognition from governments that the goal of a pandemic agreement is to prepare the world for preventing and responding to future pandemics, built on consensus, solidarity and equity. These goals must remain our North Star as we move toward the finalization of this historic, pressing commitment for the world. We know that if we fail, we will be failing humanity, including all those who suffered from COVID-19, and those at risk of future pandemics.”
Ideally, the WHO would like a formal agreement to be reached in order to officially sign off on the world’s first pandemic agreement at the next World Health Assembly at the end of May.
🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺 War
The situation in Ukraine continues to deteriorate as military aid from the United States remains stalled and European countries struggle to send enough artillery shells to keep the Ukrainians in the fight. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the Washington Post over the weekend that if weapons and ammunition don’t begin to flow from the United States again his troops may soon have to begin to slowly withdraw.
“If there is no American support, this means that there is no air defense, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimeter artillery shells.”
MAGA Republicans in the Senate have successfully road-blocked efforts to send another military aid package to Ukraine valued at $60 billion.
Russia, sensing the opportunity, is slowly making gains on several areas of the front lines despite taking heavy losses. It has also significantly increased missile and drone strikes across Ukraine. Lately, those attacks have been focused on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Compounding the problem, the British Defense Ministry has revealed that Russia is recruiting about 30,000 new soldiers per month. So despite taking staggering losses in Ukraine, it is grinding down Ukrainian forces in a bloody war of attrition. It also holds an advantage in equipment and ammunition.
🇵🇱🇪🇺/ 🇷🇺
Another warning in Europe about the rising threat of war. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Europe is simply not prepared should Russia push its war past Ukraine and into the EU. Tusk urged European leaders to seriously invest in their defenses.
“I don't want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past. It is real and it started over two years ago.”
He made the comments just days after a Russian cruise missile roared into Polish airspace on its way to hit its target in Ukraine. Cruise missiles run on carefully plotted and programmed courses so the likelihood of the intrusion being accidental is remote.
🇸🇪🇺🇦/ 🇷🇺
Sweden’s Foreign Affairs Minister says Western countries need to do a whole lot more to both support Ukraine with weapons and ammunition and also to punish Russia for its behavior. Speaking to Euractiv, Minister Tobias Billström said the West needs to make more “strategic difficulties” to reign Russia in. He said priority number one is to “stop the aggression against Ukraine.“
“We have to understand that Russia is a neighbour that is behaving irresponsibly, which is threatening the world with irresponsible nuclear threats and the idea of recreating its former empire at the expense of independent sovereign states. We have to put an end to that. We have to create more strategic difficulties for Russia. In order to [stop Russia], we first of all have to stop the aggression against Ukraine. Not all countries understand the sense of urgency to act that there is. Those countries need to understand that the conflict is here and that we need to deal with it.”
Despite Sweden being a brand-spanking new member of NATO, Billström did not spare the alliance from criticism.
“NATO is not doing enough for Ukraine.”
He says that Ukraine needs a lot more of “almost everything” and it is not so much a problem to be blamed on industrial capacity.
“[This] comes down to political leadership and political will.”
🇷🇴/ 🇷🇺
Romania, a member of NATO, has found what appears to be pieces of a Russian drone near its border with southwestern Ukraine. The Romania Ministry of Defense said that the discovery was made on March 28, when pieces of a drone were discovered in an agricultural area near the border. This is not the first time drone remains have been found along the Romanian side of its border with Ukraine.
The ministry says there is no evidence of any attack directed at Romania but rather it looks like Russian attacks on Ukrainian targets have resulted in some ordinance crossing the border.
🇫🇷 🇺🇦
France is sending another weapons package to Ukraine. French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said it will include Aster 30 anti-aircraft missiles and hundreds of armoured vehicles. The Aster 30 missiles are the French equivalent of the American Patriot missiles. They are for use with the SAMP/T MAMBA anti-aircraft system. Lecornu said his government is also working with the European defense sector to increase production of the Aster 30 missiles to ensure a steady flow to Ukraine.
France is upgrading to the next-generation Griffon armoured vehicles and in turn, will donate hundreds of older armoured vehicles to Ukraine. However, the vehicle donations won’t likely begin to flow to Ukraine until late this year or early next year.
Last month the defense minister also told French media that the next weapons package would also include 78 CAESAR howitzers and more artillery shells.
🇪🇺/ 🇷🇺
The European Parliament is being rocked as parliamentarians from six countries, Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary, are being accused of taking bribes from Russia to help influence the looming EU parliamentary elections. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo says Belgian and Czech intelligence services have uncovered the alleged effort. The accusations say that the bribes were coordinated through a Czech Republic-registered news site called Voice of Europe. The organization is facing sanctions from the Czech government, which has accused it of running a Moscow-funded pro-Russia influence campaign.
The Voice of Europe website has been offline for days now. Its social media has also been silent.
NATO 🇩🇰
NATO will soon place concrete targets on member countries for contributions of troops, aircraft, ships, and other military vehicles and equipment. Danish experts agree that Denmark cannot meet NATO’s contribution requirements today and it faces steep challenges in being able to meet them in the future.
NATO will table its new contribution requirements in the fall of 2025. It is currently doing an assessment of each member nation’s military. The evaluation of Denmark’s Armed Forces will be completed in mid-May. While NATO obviously keeps the specific details of what is expected from each member country classified we do know that the military alliance would ideally like a rapid response force of some 300,000 soldiers. Today there are roughly 50,000. In a historic defense investment, the Danish government recently pledged to increase a brigade of rapid response troops to 6,000 soldiers. It promised to reach the target by 2028.
Danish Defense Academy Military Analyst Major Esben Salling Larsen spoke to DR:
“I think it will be very difficult to achieve meeting all of NATO's strength requirements, both financially, but also in terms of time.”
Larsen emphasizes that logistical challenges aside in meeting the requirements, today it is more important than ever for countries in the alliance to be able to give NATO what it is asking for.
“It's basically all about deterring Russia. Russia must believe that NATO's plans can counter anything they can throw at them. So if there is a gap in the plans, there is also a gap in deterrence.”
As a NATO host nation, Denmark is also required by the alliance to be able to protect and defend its naval ports, military bases, and airbases used by NATO troops, ships, and planes. This will mean a strong military presence and air defenses at each.
🇸🇪
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a shifting of priorities for Sweden’s Coast Guard and the air patrols it maintains over the Baltic. Up until recently, Coast Guard air patrols were primarily focused on environmental monitoring. Now they keep an eye on Russian warships and the passage of oil tankers in Russia’s so-called ‘shadow fleet’. The fleet consists of old freighters with concealed ownership and dubious insurance sailing under flags of nations that do not have trade embargoes with Russia. They are busy shipping Russian oil in an industrial effort to skirt Western sanctions.
Coast Guard officials told Swedish national broadcaster SVT that they are seeing more and more of these aging shadow fleet tankers and the safety risks they bring with them.
Spotting Russian warships has also become a regular occurrence as the Coast Guard acknowledges they, along with the entire Swedish military, are now more vigilant for threats than they have ever been in the past.
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Sweden’s vast undersea network of data cables is vulnerable to sabotage according to experts. The bulk of the Swedish population’s internet access relies on hundreds of kilometers of data cables along the Baltic sea floor.
Nordic data giant Global Connect’s CEO Martin Lippert says the bulk of those data cables are completely unprotected.
“Our cable is 700 kilometers long, so it is difficult to protect every meter. There is a lot of metal in a submarine cable, so they are easy to identify with various forms of sonar and detectors.”
Lippert says when the cables were originally laid along the seafloor the risk of sabotage was simply not taken into consideration. The big threats of the day were ships dragging anchors and bottom trawling.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Nordic investigative journalism revealing Russia’s covert efforts to map undersea infrastructure, and the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, have put a new emphasis on protecting undersea cables and pipelines.
🇬🇧/ 🇷🇺
Russia is continuing to use social media to sow division and discord. British researchers have unveiled an orchestrated dissemination of conspiracy theories on social media surrounding British Princess Kate's cancer diagnosis. According to findings reported by the BBC, Professor Martin Innes from Cardiff University has identified a Russian disinformation campaign driving efforts to intensify the spread of false information regarding the princess's condition.
The troll farm includes people already facing sanctions in the United States for their involvement in other malicious influence campaigns. The disinformation campaign appears to be intertwined with broader agendas aimed at undermining the reputation of France, supporting Russian electoral narratives, and denigrating Ukraine. The network's tactics involve interfering in ongoing social media debates, leveraging existing narratives, and amplifying discord within Western societies.
Yevgeniy Golovchenko, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen, emphasizes that the network's objectives sowing divisions in the West and bolstering narratives of Western decline, which are then exploited by Russian state-controlled media. The researchers also uncovered specific tactics employed by the network, including the creation of numerous fake profiles that interact with a central "master profile." These profiles disseminate pre-scripted phrases, such as "Why would these major media outlets want us to believe it's Kate and William?" in order to generate viral content and sow discord.
This follows familiar patterns from Russian troll farms at pushing propaganda and misinformation across a variety of topics and issues.
🇷🇺🇺🇦🇲🇪
Far from the war in Ukraine in the town of Budva in Montenegro both Russians and Ukrainians are living side by side and hoping for peace. Swedish national broadcaster SVT went to Montenegro to see first-hand how members of two countries at war appear to be joined in a common cause.
After interviewing Russians and Ukrainians, reporters found that while there were some conflicts at first, the two groups eventually found a middle ground. It helped that a lot of the Russians who came to Montenegro were opposed to the war. Another unifying factor is the church as both Russians and Ukrainians have cultures steeped in the Orthodox culture. In Orthodox churches in the town of Budva both Russians and Ukrainians now pray side by side for the war to end.
Odds & Ends
🇨🇦
A major solar eclipse will darken the skies over Canada and the United States on April 8. We won’t be able to see it in Europe but in North America, anticipation is running wild. The Canadian side of Niagara Falls has taken the unusual step of declaring a state of emergency more than a week before the big event. The region is anticipating over a million people who want to witness the rare phenomenon beside one of the world’s most famous waterfalls. By declaring a state of emergency the region says it unlocks special powers to help ensure the health and safety of all the visitors.
The next solar eclipse to be seen in European skies will happen on August 12, 2026.
🇮🇹
Italy has one of Europe’s oldest populations with an estimated 21% of people in the country being over the age of 65. On the other end of the age spectrum birth rates in Italy have sunk to record lows. There were 379,000 registered births in Italy last year, 3.6% lower than in 2022 and a whopping 34.2% reduction from 2008. Italy hasn’t seen a birth rate this low since it began tracking the statistics in 1850.