Imagine an event so cataclysmic that 96 per cent of all species on Earth become extinct.
That was the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, 252 million years ago. As this year’s Earth Hour passed on Saturday, new evidence linking the Permian catastrophe to climate change triggered by burning coal is a warning to modern civilisation.
The end-Permian extinction was the worst ever to befall the planet, “when life nearly died”, as British palaeontologist Michael Benton’s book title expresses. It was much worse than the more familiar disaster that wiped out the dinosaurs and killed some 75 per cent of species 65 million years ago.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide rose sharply to five times today’s level, global temperatures climbed by 8°C, the ocean became more acidic and low in oxygen and the climate dried up. The iconic trilobites disappeared forever, for a time forests vanished from the face of the Earth and many corals, shellfish, insects, amphibians and reptiles died off. It took some 10 million years for ecosystems to recover, during which a few hardy species, such as the pig-like reptile Lystrosaurus, scratched a living among the corpses and detritus.
The death of the dinosaurs has been understood since 1980 to have been caused by the impact of an asteroid in modern-day Mexico. The Permian event has long been more mysterious, with no sign of an extraterrestrial origin. But from about 2000, scientists have been piecing together clues that point to something very wrong in the late Permian world – an environmental disaster.
Coinciding with the extinction is the massive volcanic outpouring that formed the Siberian Traps lava flows, in modern Russia. New research by geologist Ben Burger in Utah, finding high levels of lead and mercury in sediments from the time, fingerprints the burning of coal. Of course, there was no advanced species to burn coal deliberately at that time – but the volcanoes in Siberia appear to have ignited enormous coal beds, spreading ash clouds around the world, releasing carbon dioxide and causing global warming. This coal could have released some 11 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide, equivalent of more than 300 years of the current world economy’s emissions.
Higher sea temperatures may then have destabilised methane hydrates, ice-like substances found in polar regions and under the sea-floor, which led to further warming. The sulphur pumped out by the volcanoes would have caused acid rain and, exacerbated by elevated levels of carbon dioxide, acidic water would dissolve the shells of sea-creatures. Oxygen-depleted oceans would release toxic hydrogen sulphide gas, which might then have weakened the planet’s ozone layer, exposing plants to destructive levels of ultraviolet rays.
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Read more:
'We have to change': Al Gore warns Dubai forum of climate crisis
World Summit of the Oceans 2019 to be held in Abu Dhabi
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It is a compelling story that accords increasingly well with the geological evidence. And it is a worrying portent for our current situation. We are burning coal, oil and gas and adding carbon to the atmosphere much faster, if not on quite the same scale as at the end of the Permian.
We are already seeing signs of dangerous climate disturbance: the Arctic was unprecedentedly warm this winter. Greenland and the North Pole have been above freezing, a remarkable occurrence in the middle of 24-hour darkness. As Arctic ice melts, the darker sea-water absorbs more summer sunlight, accelerating the melting. Conversely, cold air of the polar jet stream has turned south, bringing freezing spells to North America and Europe. The threat of feedback mechanisms that cause further warming is growing more acute.
Deniers or minimisers of the threat of climate change may say that life has coped with higher global temperatures before, even if not of the extremes of the post-Permian world. Indeed, fish, plants and reptiles, would survive, but low-lying areas such as Bangladesh and Florida, not to speak of industrial civilisation, may not.
Or, they may say that such projections are extreme cases and that the likely warming is much less. That may be true, but it discounts the small but worrying possibility of disastrous upsets, that economist Martin Weitzman has shown to be the most compelling reason to mitigate climate change. Even small climatic shifts, such as a drought in a vulnerable region, can trigger conflicts and migrations with worldwide repercussions.
Of course, things probably won’t get as bad as an 8°C rise in temperature, because the global economy would collapse and greenhouse gas emissions drop long before. But that is not a very comforting prospect. Even if we can keep to the 2°C rise foreseen by 2016’s Paris Agreement, that is damaging and risky enough. Staying below 2°C requires global emissions to peak around 2020. But, although greenhouse gas emissions stayed flat during 2014-16, they rose 1.4 per cent last year as the world economy boomed.
The portrait of climatic disasters brings on a sense of hopelessness and fatalism in some, and a compulsion to denial in others. But we should instead see it as a warning and a call to action.
We have most, if not yet all, of the tools we need to build a strong global economy and society compatible with a liveable climate. While some politicians and pressure groups blunder in fruitless debates, other countries, companies and individuals get on with the hard work of creating and building low-carbon systems. We are not turning out the lights for Earth Hour, not hazarding the extinction of our civilisation, but instead building a cleaner, richer, fairer planet.
Robin M Mills is CEO of Qamar Energy, and author of The Myth of the Oil Crisis
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
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The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
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MATCH INFO
Rajasthan Royals 158-8 (20 ovs)
Kings XI Punjab 143/7 (20 ovs)
Rajasthan Royals won by 15 runs
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.
The Book of Collateral Damage
Sinan Antoon
(Yale University Press)
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
