Promise To Maui, Climate Change Backdrop, Emerging Economies Summit

and this is Up First from NPR News.

It's been a summer of extremes,

from wildfires to flooding,

what part does climate change play?

talk cooperation and competition.

Universities increasingly polarized

and competing with each other.

Stay with us, we'll give you the news you need

to start your day.

President Biden is making a promise to survivors

of one of the deadliest wildfires in U.S. history.

The whole country will be with you.

in rebuilding the historic seaside town of Lahaina.

That's where the death toll has now risen to 115.

Most of those victims remain unidentified.

and she's on the line with us now to tell us more.

Jennifer, hello, thanks for joining us.

Hi.

So it's been two weeks since this terrible fire.

Where are the survivors now?

with family and friends, but now more than 1,900

have been placed in hotels or Airbnbs.

You know, this is a big tourist destination.

There are a lot of those.

Amanda Vieira's family of four is in a one bedroom

with about three weeks of rent help from the state

and she is grateful.

But she says because of damage from the fire,

you know, cell service has been spotty

and just applying for aid online

has been incredibly difficult.

stand at a certain spot in my room to get internet,

which is hard and, you know, we lost two cars,

a dirt bike and you can't get anywhere to get Wi-Fi

if you don't have a car.

She says it's $5,462 and it is supposed to be

for two months housing, but she says the place

that she's in now is a lot more than that.

And it's not easy finding housing here.

In one of the most expensive markets in the country,

there was a housing shortage even before the fire.

Vieira says her sister-in-law got so frustrated

looking for a place, she and her kids

just left for Washington State.

So what are people being told about how long

they'll even have this aid?

their housing paid into next spring.

But a lot of people I speak with,

they just don't seem to trust that,

especially Delos Reyes.

that they're trying to open in 11 days, 12 days.

So now where does those hotel rooms go, right?

Says they need tourism,

or they think they need tourism here.

and there is some tension around tourism.

It's helped drive up the cost of living,

though of course it also provides many thousands of jobs.

Several people have told me they see

so many empty vacation homes right now

and they just wish more of those owners

would let fire survivors stay in them for a bit.

he and other political leaders repeatedly said

that Lahaina should be rebuilt

the way that residents want it.

Are you hearing from people about that

and what are they saying?

There is a real fear that longtime residents

will lose their land here to developers.

And you know, this place has cultural significance.

It was the site of the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom.

And you do see this over and over

after extreme weather events.

Rebuilding is expensive and people get priced out.

And in Lahaina, it was the older,

less expensive area that burned.

At least two apartments were subsidized housing

and last year one of them fought a legal battle

against a developer to keep it that way.

Now the governor has said he wants to find some way

to ban property sales for a while.

Some residents say they've already gotten phone calls

wanting to buy their land and community activists

have been rallying them,

telling them to stay strong and not sell.

Jennifer, thank you.

Extreme weather events that are disrupting

so many lives this summer

and in too many cases, taking lives.

Intense wildfires in Hawaii, in Washington state

a hurricane that has walloped Mexico, California

and Nevada and now threatens Oregon and Idaho

and a suffocating heat wave

across the Central and Southern US.

to tell us more about this.

Good morning, Rebecca.

This isn't just bad luck, is it?

You know, it's all related to human caused climate change.

Climate change does not cause extreme events, right?

But really intense fires and hurricanes,

it makes them more likely and more common.

So as the earth heats up, we increasingly get these years

especially summers where it feels like disaster

on disaster and disaster,

all of them driven in part by warmer temperatures.

So for example, hurricanes, they've always happened

but when the ocean is abnormally hot at the surface

it helps hurricanes grow.

We are seeing that right now in both the Pacific

where Hurricane Hillary formed

and there are multiple potential storms right now.

The same is true for wildfires.

Wildfires are an important part of healthy forest ecosystems

but drought and heat can make them burn more widely,

make them burn more intensely than in the past.

So if it feels like it can't be normal,

it's not or it didn't used to be.

on a planet that's heating up?

you know, it can be a stark reminder of climate change

and the fact that there are millions of people in the US

this time of year because there is so much extreme weather

but it's not like this year is that exceptional,

to be frank, you know, especially if you zoom out

and look at the planet as a whole.

Last year, there were record-breaking hurricanes

and wildfires and heat waves.

The year before that, same deal.

The year before that and the year before that.

And I say that not to minimize it, but to give the context,

you know, the last nine years are the hottest nine years

recorded on planet earth.

Climate change is just relentlessly wreaking havoc

on people everywhere.

It's just a matter of when that extreme weather

will come for you and arrive in your community.

The big thing is to dramatically reduce

greenhouse gas emissions.

Stop burning oil and gas and coal,

transition to wind and solar.

Scientists say that we need to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions in half by the end of the decade

and get all the way to basically zero by 2050.

Right now, it is not clear that there's political will

to do that.

There's an array of fossil fuel and corporate interests

that are slowing things down.

The other thing to remember though,

is that even though climate change

does make the weather more intense,

we can lessen the damage by building our homes

and our local grids in resilient ways,

by having emergency plans that keep

climate-driven weather in mind,

because it's gonna keep happening,

by preparing and protecting those

who are most vulnerable to this weather.

You know, I'm thinking about floods

like the ones in California this week

or the fire in Maui.

The weather was related to climate change

to varying degrees,

but how we prepare for and react to that weather

can determine who lives and who dies.

Rebecca, thanks so much once again.

Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa,

kicks off its annual summit today in Johannesburg.

for a lot of talk with little substance.

But this year, the US and Europe are watching closely

because of how polarizing Russia's invasion

of Ukraine has been.

China's President Xi Jinping will attend in person.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not,

but will join virtually to avoid putting South Africa

in the awkward position of having to arrest him

for war crimes under an international criminal court warrant.

from Kate Bartlett in Johannesburg.

So why don't you just start us off with the headlines.

What are the key issues these leaders will take up?

namely the possible expansion of the block

Already, collectively BRICS accounts for 25% of global GDP

and 40% of the world's population.

Now, some 40 more countries have expressed interest

in joining the block.

And like the current grouping,

they include a politically diverse group

with democracies like Argentina and autocracies like Iran.

But not all the BRICS members

are as keen on expansion as others.

Russia is spearheading the push for expansion

and like Ukraine, Russia is increasingly isolated.

Another main issue on the agenda will be the block's desire

to move away from US dollar dominance

and to promote more use of its own currencies.

is becoming more relevant?

The sheer number wanting to join

shows many global South countries buy what BRICS is selling

an alternative to what they see as a US dominated

unequal global order.

Something the summit host

and South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa

referred to in an eve of summit address to the nation.

Let's hear what he had to say.

with different political systems that share a common desire

to have a more balanced global order.

Our world has become increasingly complex and fractured

as it is increasingly polarized

and competing with each other.

with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov

filling in for Putin.

Both China and South Africa

have officially remained neutral on the war

but have each proposed peace plans.

But host country South Africa has received a lot of flack

for not criticizing the Russian invasion

and its perceived bias towards Moscow.

But Ramaphosa says it doesn't serve African nations

who are drawn into a kind of new cold war.

I take it that China's president Xi

is not just there for the summit, is he?

Possibly most significantly,

Chinese president Xi Jinping is also paying

an official state visit to South Africa today.

It's only his second international trip this year

after visiting Russia.

China is South Africa's biggest trade partner by far

and a significant presence in Africa.

But South African officials have stressed

there is a trade imbalance that needs addressing.

There have also been concerns

about how China's own economic downturn might affect trade.

Kate, thank you so much.

I'm Michelle Martin.

Up First is produced by Mansi Khurana and Claire Murashima.

Our editors are Ravenna Koenig, Nila Banerjee,

Michael Sullivan, Tara Neal, Jan Johnson,

and Alice Wolfley.

Our director is Lily Quiroz.

Our technical director is Zach Coleman

with engineering support from Carly Strange.

Join us again tomorrow.

Your NPR station makes Up First possible each morning.

Please support them and support us

at donate.npr.org slash upfirst.