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Police officers remove a protestor of the group "Insulate Britain" from the roof of a lorry at the entrance of Po September 24, 2021. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls - 

British climate change protesters on Friday (Sep 24) temporarily blocked the Port of Dover, Europe's busiest trucking port, and police arrested 39 people.

About 40 activists from the environmental group Insulate Britain brought traffic to and from the port, the main artery for trade over the English Channel, to a standstill. Some demonstrators sat on the road until police cleared them.

The port said on Twitter that traffic was moving freely again about three hours after it announced the protest.

Insulate Britain wants the government to commit to providing insulation for 29 million homes in an effort to curb fossil fuel use and fight global warming.

The Transport Ministry said the High Court on Friday approved an injunction that would send members of the group to jail if they repeat the Dover protests.

The group has blocked London's M25 orbital motorway five times in the last two weeks, and an order calling for jail time was issued earlier in the week for further protests on the M25.

"It is unacceptable that people cannot go about their day-to-day businesses ... because of the reckless actions of a few protesters," Transport Minister Grant Shapps said on Twitter.

Insulate Britain says the government should fund the insulation of all social housing by 2025. Nearly 15per cent of the UK's total greenhouse gas emissions come from heating homes, it says.

“We are sorry for the disruption that we are causing. It seems to be the only way to keep the issue of insulation on the agenda," the group said.

Britain, which aims to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, will host the UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson will push world leaders to commit to ending reliance on fossil fuels//CNA

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the world to step up its fight against climate change - 

The United Nations chief called Friday (Sep 24) for the world to redouble its renewable energy efforts to avert a climate emergency and address global energy poverty.

"Today, we face a moment of truth," said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who described the mandate as a "double imperative - to end energy poverty and to limit climate change.

"And we have an answer that will fulfil both imperatives," Guterres said. "Affordable, renewable and sustainable energy for all."

The comments came as governments and the private sector pledged to spend more than US$400 billion at a high-level summit that called for an acceleration of efforts to avert catastrophic climate change and simultaneously bring electricity to more of the 760 million people around the world who currently lack it.

The "energy compact" lists commitments from more than 35 governments and several large companies, including TotalEnergies, Schneider Electric and Google.

The aim is to revamp the global energy system, which accounts for about 75 percent of total greenhouse gases, according to the United Nations.

Jennifer Layke, global energy director at the World Resources Institute, said the pledges serve "transparency purposes" and enable NGOs to hold companies and governments accountable.

But "to deliver on climate, we still have a long way to go to get to the level of transformation on the energy transition that is required," she said.

Guterres noted there has been some progress, with renewable energy now comprising 29 per cent of global electricity generation.

"But it's not nearly fast enough," Guterres said. "We are still a long way from being able to provide affordable and clean energy for all."

He said the world must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent in 2030 from 2010 levels to limit temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

An IMF study published Friday estimated that direct and indirect subsidies of fossil fuels added up to us$5.9 trillion, about 6.8 per cent of global GDP in 2020.

"Underpricing fossil fuel undermines domestic and global environmental objectives, hurting people and hurting the planet," said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva//CNA

US President Joe Biden hosts a virtual coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Summit as part of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) from the South Court Auditorium in the White House complex in Washington, US, Sep 22, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein) - 

Some 60 million people in the United States are now eligible for a Pfizer booster shot against COVID-19, President Joe Biden said on Friday (Sep 24) as a regulatory marathon laying bare divisions within the scientific community on the issue came to a close.

In the end, US health authorities have recommended boosters for three categories of people: those 65 and older, those 18-64 with an underlying medical condition such as diabetes or obesity, and those who are especially exposed to the virus because of their work or where they live.

The last, at-risk group is large and includes teachers, grocery store employees, health care workers, prisoners and people living in homeless shelters.

A total of 20 million people got their second Pfizer shot long enough ago - at least six months - to qualify now for a booster, Biden said.

"Go get the booster," he said in a remarks at the White House.

"I'll be getting my booster shot," the 78-year-old president added, "as soon as I can."

Biden said people who have received Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccinations could get booster shots once studies have been completed and he expected that all Americans would be eligible "in the near term."

Some immunocompromised people in the United States have been eligible to receive a third dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine since early August.

Biden had wanted to launch a mass campaign of Pfizer and Moderna booster shots this week for all Americans.

But the move was put on hold by the US health authorities. Moderna did not submit the necessary data in time and experts were divided about what to do regarding Pfizer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday overruled its own panel of health experts to back Pfizer booster shots for individuals at high risk of exposure because of their jobs.

CDC director Rochelle Walensky said the agency had to act on "complex, often imperfect data" for the greater good of public health.

"In a pandemic, even with uncertainty, we must take actions that we anticipate will do the greatest good," Walensky said in a statement.

The CDC also backed the panel's recommendation of booster shots for over-65s and some with underlying medical conditions.

The decision came after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Pfizer booster shots for a broader swathe of the American public.

A day before the CDC recommendation, its expert had committee voted against offering booster shots to workers in the higher risk category, adding to confusion around the campaign.

The hours-long debate left several experts torn, as the scientific community has so far failed to reach consensus on whether a coronavirus vaccine booster shot is necessary at this time.

Some experts have concerns about the lack of data on the efficacy and safety of adding another shot to the Pfizer vaccine regimen.

The original two doses are still proving successful at keeping the vast majority of their recipients out of the hospital with coronavirus, they say.

But data does suggest that the vaccine's efficacy against infection does significantly decline in older people over time.

Walensky said approval of boosters for certain at-risk individuals is "first step," and that the CDC would update its guidance on boosters in real time as needed. The agency will evaluate in the coming weeks data on boosters for recipients of the J&J and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines//CNA

A migrant seeking refuge in the US crosses the Rio Grande river with his son on shoulders, at the border towards Del Rio, Texas, US, as seen from Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, Sep 23, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Daniel Becerril) - 

Only a few hundred mostly Haitian migrants were left camping out under an international bridge in Del Rio, Texas on Friday (Sep 24), down from nearly 15,000 people who had converged there last week as US officials ramped up expulsions to Haiti and some releases into the United States.

Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens, who has been keeping tabs on the number of people in the camp, said there were 225 people left under the bridge that connects the United States and Mexico on Friday morning.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not immediately respond to a request for comment but on Thursday evening had said there were 5,000 people currently in the Del Rio border sector, which would include people who had been moved to federal facilities for immigration processing.

Reuters photos and videos of the camp show camping tents pitched closely together and some shelters made out of sticks and tarps.

Haitians have also set up camp on the Mexican side of the border in Ciudad Acuna, as hundreds retreated back across the Rio Grande after US officials began sending planes of people back to Haiti.

Mexican officials urged Haitians to give up hopes of seeking asylum in the United States telling them instead to return to Mexico's southern border with Guatemala to request asylum in Mexico.

US President Joe Biden has faced strong criticism in recent days over the expulsions to Haiti. Rocked by the assassination of its president, gang violence and natural disasters, some 1,401 Haitian nationals have been sent back to Haiti on 12 repatriation flights since Sunday, Sep 19. The Caribbean island is the poorest in the Western hemisphere.

On Thursday, the US special envoy to Haiti quit in protest over the Biden administration's deportations of migrants to the Caribbean nation.

That followed widespread outrage stirred up by images of a US border guard on horseback unfurling a whip-like cord against at Haitian migrants near their camp.

Most migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border can be summarily expelled under a public health order known as Title 42 that was put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic early last year.

But hundreds of other migrants, deemed particularly vulnerable or otherwise not eligible for Title 42, have been allowed into the United States to pursue their immigration claims in US court. Still others may be transferred to immigration detention, though DHS did not provide a breakdown of the diverging fates of migrants who had recently arrived in Del Rio.

On Friday, more than a hundred migrants were dropped off at a center welcoming migrants in Del Rio, according to a Reuters witness. From there most head to other destinations in the United States to reunite with family members.

Yet pressure is also growing on Biden to tighten the border, and Mexico's National Migration Institute (INM) is starting to return migrants to the southern Mexican city of Tapachula so they can file asylum applications there.

"We're not taking them out of the country," INM chief Francisco Garduno told Reuters. "We're bringing them away from the border so there are no hygiene and overcrowding problems."

Haitians who made the perilous, costly journey from Guatemala to Ciudad Acuna on the Mexico-US border are skeptical about the merits of going back to a city where they had already unsuccessfully tried to process asylum claims.

Willy Jean, who spent two fruitless months in Tapachula, said if Mexico really wanted to help the migrants, it should allow them to make their applications elsewhere.

"Tapachula's really tough, really small, there's lots of people," he told an INM agent trying to persuade him to go south. "There's no work, there's nothing."

Official data from Mexico show Haitians are already far less likely to have asylum claims approved in Mexico compared with many nationalities, even if their chances are starting to improve//CNA