By Julia Harte

(Reuters) – Abortion rights advocates and opponents are set to mark this week’s one-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had legalized the procedure nationwide with events to rally voters and highlight the ongoing fights over access.

The ruling, whose anniversary comes this Saturday, had a swift impact by freeing states to ban abortion. Republican-controlled legislatures in numerous states passed restrictive legislation, with near-total abortion bans now in place in 14 states even as opinion polls show that a majority of Americans want abortion legal in all or most cases.

Abortion rights supporters did manage in some states to fight off new proposed restrictions or codify abortion protections.

Ahead of a rally set for Saturday in Washington, Rachel Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March activist organization, acknowledged the devastating blow dealt to reproductive rights by the Supreme Court’s reversal last year.

“We are framing this to lift up the wins that we’ve had in the last year, but of course it’s a somber day for us,” Carmona said.

The rally, sponsored by several national groups, aims to ensure the day “does not go down as a victory lap for people who are trying to strip reproductive rights from our country,” Carmona added.

The White House said Vice President Kamala Harris will use a speech on Saturday in Charlotte, North Carolina, to make the case for national legislation to protect abortion rights – currently an unlikely prospect in a deeply divided Congress. Harris is set to deliver her speech a week before a new Republican-backed law takes effect in the state, banning abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, down from the current 20-week window.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America on Tuesday will announce a new partnership with former White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, according to Emily Osment, a spokesperson for the anti-abortion group. Conway, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump, will lead the group’s messaging and help train Republican candidates to “get on offense to talk about pro-life protections moving forward,” Osment said.

Conway will be joined at Tuesday’s press conference by state lawmakers who have helped pass new abortion restrictions since Roe was overturned as well as staff from anti-abortion pregnancy crisis centers who have faced threats and attacks since the ruling, Osment said.

In last November’s congressional elections, Republicans narrowly won control of the House of Representatives but overall did not perform as well as had been expected. Strategists in both parties have attributed Democratic strength at the polls at least in part to higher support from women who back abortion rights.

CAMPAIGN ISSUE

Activists on both sides of the abortion debate have made clear that the issue will remain central in next year’s congressional and presidential races.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is urging candidates seeking the Republican nomination to back a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Democratic President Joe Biden, an abortion rights supporter, is seeking re-election.

Reproductive rights advocates said they hope to harness popular support for legalized abortion to help elect officials who could reverse limits that already have been imposed and protect access where it remains intact.

Some 64% of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in May said they were less likely to support a presidential candidate who backed laws severely restricting abortion, compared to 36% who said they were more likely to back such a candidate.

Critical election battlegrounds include Virginia, the Southern state with the least restrictive abortion laws and one of a few places where voters will elect new state legislators this November, according to Christina Reynolds, spokesperson for the group Emily’s List that backs Democratic female candidates who support abortion rights.

Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s Republican governor, wants greater limits on abortion, but a narrow Democratic majority in the state Senate has blocked any such measure. Reynolds said her group will be fighting to protect that Senate majority and try to pick up seats in the state House of Delegates.

The biggest expansions of abortion rights over the past year occurred in states including Michigan and Minnesota where Democrats control both the legislature and the governor’s office, Reynolds said.

“We want to make more states Michigan and Minnesota,” Reynolds said.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, another group involved in Saturday’s rally in Washington, is mobilizing its 4 million members to canvass, make phone calls and collect signatures for ballot measures such as an Ohio state constitutional amendment that would protect abortion rights, according to Ryan Stitzlein, the group’s senior political director.

In every election since the Supreme Court ruling, Stitzlein said, “abortion has been front and center, and a huge motivating factor for voters – and we expect that to continue.”

(Reporting by Julia Harte in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Colleen Jenkins)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.N. has adopted the world’s first treaty to protect the high seas and preserve marine biodiversity in international waters, marking a milestone after nearly 20 years of effort, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced Monday.

The adoption followed an agreement reached in March by more than 100 countries on the of text of the High Seas Treaty, also known as the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction treaty, after more than 15 years of discussions and five rounds of U.N.-led negotiations.

In approving the text, member states have “pumped new life and hope to give the ocean a fighting chance,” Guterres said in a statement.

The agreement will be open for signature in New York for two years starting Sept. 20, the day following a summit on the U.N. sustainable development goals. It will take effect after 60 countries ratify the agreement, according to the U.N.

The pact is a key plank in efforts to put 30% of the world’s land and sea under environmental protection by 2030, a goal set in December.

Among other provisions, the legally binding agreement would govern sharing benefits derived from marine genetic resources beyond national jurisdictions, creating protected areas on the high seas and establishing a framework for assessing environmental damage.

(Reporting by Douglas Gillison; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

(Repeats to add link to report in paragraph 2)

By Gloria Dickie

(Reuters) -Glaciers in Asia’s Hindu Kush Himalaya could lose up to 75% of their volume by century’s end due to global warming, causing both dangerous flooding and water shortages for the 240 million people who live in the mountainous region, according to a new report.

A team of international scientists has found that ice loss in the region, home to the famous peaks of Everest and K2, is speeding up. During the 2010s, the glaciers shed ice as much as 65% faster than they had in the preceding decade, according to the assessment by the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), an intergovernmental scientific authority on the region. 

“We’re losing the glaciers, and we’re losing them in 100 years’ time,” said Philippus Wester, an environmental scientist and ICIMOD fellow who was the lead author of the report.

The Hindu Kush Himalaya stretches 3,500 km (2,175 miles) across Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.

At 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2C of warming above preindustrial temperatures, glaciers across the entire region will lose 30% to 50% of their volume by 2100, the report said.

But where glaciers will melt most depends on location. At 3C of warming — what the world is roughly on track for under current climate policies — glaciers in the Eastern Himalaya, which includes Nepal and Bhutan, will lose up to 75% of their ice. At 4C of warming, that ticks up to 80%.

THE FULL PICTURE

Scientists have struggled to assess how climate change is affecting the Hindu Kush Himalaya. Unlike the European Alps and North America’s Rocky Mountains, the region lacks a long historical record of field measurements that reveal whether glaciers are growing or shrinking.

“There was always some uncertainty in the Himalaya — are they really melting?”, said Wester.

In 2019, the United States declassified spy satellite images of the region’s glaciers dating back to 1970, providing a new scientific baseline.

Further advances in satellite technology in the past five years, alongside bolstered field efforts, have buoyed scientists’ understanding of the changes underway. The report draws on data running through December 2022.

“While the knowledge of the Himalayan glaciers is still not as good as the Alps, it’s now comparable to other regions like the Andes,” said Tobias Bolch, a glaciologist with Graz University of Technology in Austria unaffiliated with the report.

Compared with a 2019 ICIMOD assessment of the region, “there’s a much higher level of confidence now in these findings,” said Wester. “We have a better sense of what the loss will be through to 2100 at different levels of global warming.” 

LIVELIHOODS AT RISK

With this newfound understanding comes grave concern for the people living in the Hindu Kush Himalaya.

The report found water flows in the region’s 12 river basins, including the Ganges, Indus, and Mekong, are likely to peak around mid-century, with consequences for the more than 1.6 billion people who depend on this supply.

“While it may sound like we’ll have more water because glaciers are melting at an increased rate … too frequently it will arise as floods instead of a steady flow,” said Wester. Past peak water, supplies will eventually dwindle.

Many high mountain communities use glacial water and snowmelt to irrigate crops. But the timing of when snow falls has become more erratic, and there’s less than there used to be.

“We’ve had … huge numbers of yak deaths because during summer they go to higher pastures,” said report co-author Amina Maharjan, a senior specialist in livelihoods and migration at ICIMOD. If the snow falls too soon, “the entire area is covered in snow and they don’t have grass to graze”.

People are now moving away from mountain communities to earn income elsewhere, she said.

Melting glaciers also pose a danger to downstream communities. Runoff pools in shallow lakes, held back by rocks and debris. The risk comes when a lake overfills, bursting through its natural barrier and sending a torrent of water rushing down mountain valleys.

Governments are trying to prepare for these changes. China is working to shore up the country’s water supplies. And Pakistan is installing early warning systems for glacial lake outburst floods.

(Reporting by Gloria Dickie in LondonEditing by Frances Kerry)