Some of Australia's most powerful lobby groups have been put on notice over climate change with BHP, the world's biggest mining company, setting standards that require them to advocate for Paris agreement-aligned emissions reductions and stop backing energy policies that favour fossil fuels over renewables.The new standards say the associations must ensure their lobbying is balanced – prohibiting them from emphasising the cost of climate action without considering the cost of inaction – and ensure their lobbying does not attack or promote one energy source or commodity over another, such as advocating for coal or against renewable energy. https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/bhp-puts-power
Australian Federal and state governments will have their reform efforts ranked in a new index that measures their benefits to the economy and is expected to build pressure for further action.AlphaBeta has created the index to measure reform across every federal government since 1984 and plans to extend it to state governments.The index – known as the "Structural Reform Momentum Index" – ranks each piece of reform out of 10 in terms of its economic impact. It then adds the scores together to give a five-year rolling average score for each year.https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/official-reform-efforts-hit-multi-decade-low-20200811-p55kp9
The technology behind the Russian vaccine is based on adenovirus, the common cold. Created artificially, the vaccine proteins replicate those of Covid-19, triggering an immune response similar to that caused by the coronavirus itself ie immunization is similar to having survived the virus, but without its life-threatening risks.The research has been funded by Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and the vaccine discovery process has been compared to the Space Racehttps://www.rt.com/russia/497360-russia-first-covid19-vaccine/
