Extreme heat is putting pregnant mothers and their newborns at increasing risk, United Nations climate chief Simon Stiell will warn on Monday.

Speaking at the “pre-COP” summit in Nadi, Fiji, Stiell will cite a new survey showing more than two-thirds of health professionals across five continents had seen complications caused by intense heat in the past five years.

“Rising temperatures mean rising danger in pregnancy,” he is expected to say.

“Climate-driven extreme heat during pregnancy is increasingly linked to premature birth, stillbirth, low birth weight, and maternal complications.”

“The picture is clear and very disturbing: as extreme heat worsens, pregnancy and birth are now a new faultline in the global climate crisis, and one which is potentially fatal,” Stiell will say.

“This faultline must not become another deep chasm of climate-driven suffering, inequality and injustice.”

Scientists warn that climate change is making extreme weather events more intense and resulting in heat records tumbling more often.

Around 33 countries, spanning from western Europe to the Sahel and central America, recorded their hottest July since records began this year, according to AFP analysis of data from the European Union’s Copernicus climate observatory.

The survey of 1000 midwives and doctors in the United Kingdom, Australia, India, Brazil and Zimbabwe was commissioned by charitable foundation Wellcome.

Its chairwoman — Australian former Prime Minister Julia Gillard — said in a statement that mothers and babies are being put at increasing risk as a result of climate change.

“Extreme heat is an invisible killer, but pregnant women must not be invisible. Leaders have the evidence and solutions they need — now they must act,” Gillard said.

The survey found nearly all midwives and doctors had cared for mothers or babies suffering the effects of extreme heat.

About a third of respondents said they had seen cases of low birth weight or restricted growth, feeding difficulties, and dehydration or heat-related illness, all resulting from what they believed was extreme heat.

Stiell will tell pre-COP delegates that “pregnancy should be a time of hope”.

“But for millions, it is becoming a time of anxiety, as climate impacts fill everyday life with risk.”

The pre-COP31 summit in Fiji and the remote coral atoll Tuvalu is seen by Pacific leaders as a chance to draw attention to life on the frontline of climate change.

They are a precursor to the larger UN-sponsored global climate summit — known as COP31 — to be held next month in Turkey.









AFP

The prison chief in the southern US state of Tennessee has resigned, the governor said Saturday, after an unprecedented botched execution left a convicted murderer on a ventilator in critical condition.

Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada will leave his post this month, Governor Bill Lee said in a statement.

Christa Pike, 50, on Wednesday survived two lethal injections of pentobarbital, a drug that suppresses nervous system activity.

Media witnesses listened to her snoring for about an hour after being administered the deadly doses, and said she was alive as they were ushered out of the execution chamber viewing area at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Pike was taken to a hospital where she was “critically ill,” unconscious and on a ventilator as medical staff worked to clear the pentobarbital from her system, her lawyers said in a court filing Friday.

Lee said he thanked Strada for “his willingness to put the interests of Tennesseans first during this difficult moment.”

In the same statement, Strada said: “I continue to believe the Department (of Correction) carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established protocol.”

Lee, who previously denied Pike clemency, has halted further executions through the rest of the year pending a “comprehensive, third-party review.”

Pike’s legal team had previously objected to the execution’s IV protocol, saying it would have caused needless suffering due to her small veins and a blood condition.

Lawyer Randy Spivey has said he saw seven needles used in just Pike’s left arm as execution staff tried to start an IV line, “one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt.”

Medical experts had warned of needles becoming dislodged or piercing through the vein, causing lethal drugs to flow into Pike’s arm instead of the bloodstream, lawyer Stephen Ferrell has said.

The court filing described pentobarbital as a caustic substance that burns skin, tissue and veins. Upon arrival at the hospital, both of Pike’s arms were “swollen, burned, and blistered,” it said.

Media witnesses said Pike told execution staff after receiving the lethal injection that her arm felt like it would “burst open.”

The Death Penalty Information Center, which publishes data and analysis on capital punishment in the United States, said Pike was the first inmate ever to survive “after being injected with lethal doses of execution drugs.”

Her case had sparked debate over capital punishment for young criminals, as she was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed Colleen Slemmer, 19, at a job training camp.

The 1995 killing gained national attention after Slemmer’s body was found with a pentagram, often seen as a satanic symbol, carved in her chest.

Pike’s lawyers had argued for clemency due to her young age and mental health issues at the time of Slemmer’s killing. They also cited her history of childhood sexual assault and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The case had already attracted attention in the lead-up to the execution date as Pike would have been the first woman put to death by the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years.

In the United States, only 18 women have been executed since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Russia on Saturday issued a new call for diplomats and foreigners to leave Kyiv, warning the Ukrainian capital of new “massive” strikes, in a statement by its foreign ministry.

Moscow has been pummelling Ukraine with drone and missile barrages throughout its offensive and in the past weeks has stepped up the strikes against Kyiv, targeting key infrastructure.

In a statement on Saturday, the Russian foreign ministry said it “had previously urged foreign nationals and diplomats in Kyiv to leave the city and refrain from visiting Ukraine.”

“We note with concern that not everyone has heeded these warnings, and that individuals are knowingly exposing themselves to mortal danger,” the ministry said.

“The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation will continue to deliver massive retaliatory strikes,” it warned.

It also stated that “responsibility for any potential negative consequences rests entirely with those who ignore this warning.”

On Friday, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the city should now be on a war footing as the enemy was “tearing Kyiv apart” with strikes on bridges and energy infrastructure.

President Volodymyr Zelensky accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of ripping up the rulebook of armed conflict by sanctioning massive attacks on civilian areas, an accusation the Kremlin has rejected.