• What will life in a Russian penal colony be like for WNBA star Brittney Griner? 

• Russia’s retreat from Kherson that not even the Kremlin can spin 

💠 ON THE GRID

What will life in a Russian penal colony be like for Brittney Griner?

The news

Since her arrest at Sheremetyevo airport outside of Moscow in February, American WNBA star Brittney Griner has been in Russian custody. In early August, a Russian court sentenced Griner to nine years in a penal colony on charges of drug possession and smuggling.  

Soon after, Griner’s lawyers appealed her conviction as talks between U.S. and Russian officials took place on a potential prisoner exchange for her freedom. As we’ve reported at Grid, and followed in this newsletter, one proposal was to exchange Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan for Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer. 

But in late October, a Russian court rejected Griner’s appeal, upholding her sentence. Now, the basketball star is being transferred to a penal colony – a place that brings to mind the grim Soviet-era Gulag system. 

The context

What is a penal colony, exactly? And what sort of conditions would a person like Griner face in one? 

Tom Nagorski and Stanislav Kucher spoke with experts on the Russian penal system about what might be ahead for her.  

⚖️ Learn more about Russian penal colonies. 

More on Griner’s case 

• Viktor Bout for Brittney Griner? The convicted arms dealer the U.S. offered for a WNBA star.
• The U.S. has negotiated deals with Iran, Venezuela and the Taliban to free American citizens. Is that a good thing? 

What questions do you have about the news? Let us know.  📩

Our Climate Reporter Dave Levitan is now on the ground at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. This is our fifth dispatch on the two-week U.N. talks Missed our briefings on COP27 so far?  Catch up with Dave’s earlier updates. 
 
All the President’s Methane  

Greetings from Sharm el-Sheikh, where I have arrived to cover the conclusion of the talks. My feeling that the city is a somewhat odd choice for a COP host has not yet been dispelled — Sharm el-Sheikh sits in an otherwise empty stretch of desert on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, with the shockingly turquoise Red Sea to the southeast and a line of rust-brown mountains cutting it off from the rest of the peninsula to the north. Last year in Glasgow, next year in Dubai and this year in a city whose population of 73,000 might barely double the COP’s attendance. 

Biden’s bold promises

I arrived Friday a few hours before President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak, an event buttressed by a well-received EPA announcement that it will strengthen a 2021 rule to reduce methane emissions. The agency’s plan includes a number of new provisions aimed at cutting back the release of the greenhouse gas that warms the planet 80 times as effectively as carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere.  

The EPA rule would require better monitoring of oil and gas wells, which are significant sources of methane leaks; increase the use of remote sensing techniques to find those leaks; require better control and operation of natural gas flaring; and a number of other provisions. 

Curbing methane emissions is critical for limiting near-term warming, given the gas’s high but short-lived potency (as compared to CO2, which can remain aloft for centuries). In other good news on this front, as Grid’s China Reporter Lili Pike wrote yesterday, the world’s biggest emitter has also now established a plan to start curbing its methane emissions. 

Biden touted the U.S. methane rule in his speech at the COP, saying the policy will act in concert with pieces of the landmark Inflation Reduction Act to help move the U.S. toward its emissions target of 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. In fact, he said the country is now on track for such a target — not a sentiment experts and models seem to share, though it is certainly getting closer. When the IRA passed, modeling suggested it could get the country to around 40 to 42 percent below 2005 levels; the methane rule could likely add another percent to that.  

Biden, though, is starting to make more forceful promises on the topic: “The U.S. will meet our emissions target by 2030.” 

Decarbonization day 

Friday was “Decarbonization Day” at COP27, where a variety of events focused on the challenges inherent to reducing emissions from a few tough sectors, including steel and cement production, among others. Some of these sectors are particularly tricky given the chemistry involved. They are often invoked as some of the metaphorical “last mile” of the world’s journey toward net-zero. 

As with most of the theme days at any COP, this one saw the release of several lofty statements and coalition promises. In one, countries representing over half of the global GDP launched a collection of 25 actions aimed at decarbonizing five sectors (power, road transport, steel, hydrogen and agriculture). By its nature, this sort of high-level initiative is somewhat short on the details of implementation. As COP26 president and U.K. Member of Parliament Alok Sharma said in a statement, “Now, it is vital for all to deliver and demonstrate real progress as we move forward.” 

The industries themselves are also getting in on the action. A group called the Alliance for Industry Decarbonization, which officially launched in September, held its first official meeting here in Egypt; the group is composed of 28 companies, and though these initial talks appeared to do little more than outline some core goals and focus areas, many experts and pundits have said that reaching climate targets is very difficult without more robust participation of industry. 

“The heavy industries are responsible for a considerable share of the total carbon dioxide emissions in the world today,” said Alliance co-chair and CEO of Tata Steel T.V. Narendran. Other members include Siemens Energy, EDF Renewables, Sable Chemicals and more. 

Still, there is a whiff of “classic COP” to these sorts of alliances and announcements, with good speeches and lofty ambitions but not necessarily a ton of follow-up. It was only a few days ago that the U.N. secretary-general warned of the dangers of corporate greenwashing. One moving target for all COP attendees, after so many years of stagnation, is to convince the world the promises really will come to pass. – Dave Levitan

💠 NEWS IN CONTEXT

Veterans are suffering from mental illness at an alarming rate with young, male veterans most at risk

An important read this Veterans Day: Veterans are suffering from mental illness at a rate that is significantly higher than the general population. And though recent data shows suicide rates among veterans have decreased, young male veterans are the most at risk for suicide, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. 

“While there has been a consistent flow of legislation over the past 25 years to support veterans who need mental health support, experts say there is quite a bit that still needs to be done to ‘plug the holes’ where support is lacking,” a Grid team reports in a new 360 Brief. “Most of it is about easing the restrictions on the kind of mental health support veterans can access and where.”  

And even with bipartisan support for legislation on improving mental health services for veterans, “there’s so much to do to help veterans thrive,” one House Veterans Affairs Committee staffer told Grid.

🇺🇸 Read more from our Health, Data and Policy lenses. 
 

If you’re a veteran who needs help or know of one who does, the Department of Veterans Affairs has a number of resources listed here. 

💠 MORE FROM GRID

• NASAMS: The U.S. is providing National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or NASAMS, to Ukraine to help its resistance to Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. Notably, these are the same systems that protect Washington, D.C., from aerial attacks. Read Joshua Keating’s report on NASAMS and what they mean for the Ukrainian war effort.

• Retreat from Kherson: Ukraine’s recapture of the southern city of Kherson – the first major city Russian forces took after the start of the war, the only Ukrainian provincial capital they held and one of the areas Russia illegally annexed in September – could be its biggest victory so far, Joshua Keating and Stanislav Kucher report. See how the disastrous Russian retreat from the city is one that even Kremlin propaganda can’t spin.

• The fall of FTX: In the past few days, the sudden and dramatic collapse of FTX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has stunned the crypto and traditional financial worlds. Benjamin Powers reports how the collapse of this massive firm could have a ripple effect through financial markets. And earlier today, Benjamin hosted a Twitter Space with CoinDesk Managing Editor Nikhilesh De and Crypto is Macro Now newsletter author Noelle Acheson on what FTX’s collapse means for the future of crypto. Follow their fascinating conversation.

👋 That’s all for today. See you this time tomorrow. –Cameron

👍 If you like this newsletter, share it! It’s the best way to help us reach new readers.

💌 Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here. And check out all of our newsletters, including Grid Health, our new weekly health and policy newsletter.

📲 Follow us on Telegram for news, stories and updates throughout the day.