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Porn Actress Stormy Daniels Testified at Trump's Hush Money Trial; Two Ukrainian Officials Arrested for Treason over the Failed Assassination Plot vs. President Zelenskyy; Copernicus Predicts Second Straight Hottest Year on Record; Macklemore Drops Rap Single Tackling Ongoing Campus Protests. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired May 08, 2024 - 03:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[03:00:00]

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world and to everyone streaming us on CNN Max. I'm Rosemary Church.

Just ahead, the U.S. withholds a shipment of bombs to Israel over fears they could be used in a Rafah incursion.

Stormy Daniels takes the stand at Donald Trump's hush money trial, sharing graphic details about her alleged sexual encounter with the former president.

And from the U.S. to Kenya to China, deadly flooding has engulfed communities all over the world and these extreme weather events are only becoming more common. We'll speak with an expert about the impact of climate change on the severity and frequency of these disasters.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Rosemary Church.

CHURCH: Thanks for joining us. And we begin in Gaza where Israeli authorities say a key border crossing is now open for humanitarian aid. The Kerem Shalom crossing was closed on Sunday after a rocket attack killed four Israeli soldiers. A government statement says trucks are already arriving at the crossing and will be allowed into Gaza after inspection.

Meanwhile, Israeli's military offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza is now in its second day, despite weeks of very public opposition from Washington. And one U.S. official tells CNN the White House paused a shipment of 2,000 pound and 500 pound bombs to Israel last week over concerns about civilian casualties in Rafah.

The Rafah incursion has killed at least 27 people since it started late Monday, including six women and nine children. An IDF spokesperson says approximately 20 terrorists have been killed so far. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant visited an artillery battery at the Israel-Gaza border near Rafah on Tuesday, where he outlined the IDF's mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOAV GALLANT, ISRAELI DEFENSE MINISTER (through translator): This operation will continue until we eliminate Hamas in the Rafah area and the entire Gaza Strip or until the first hostage returns. We are willing to make compromises in order to bring back the hostages, but if that option is removed, we will go on and deepen the operation. This will happen all over the Strip, in the south, in the center and in the north. We know that Hamas only responds to force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: CNN's Scott McLean is following developments live this hour in Istanbul. He joins us now. So, Scott, what more are we learning about this pause in US bomb shipments to Israel?

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Rosemary. Yeah, so this is according to our colleague at the Pentagon in Washington, Oren Liebermann, who is citing a U.S. official saying that this shipment of bombs has been paused. They haven't made a decision on what will ultimately happen with this shipment.

But we're talking about 3,500 bombs. About half of them, roughly, are one-ton bombs, so 2,000-pound bombs. The other half are 500-pound bombs. And the concern is, in particular, with those one-ton bombs being used in Rafah or other densely populated areas because of the potential damage that they could do.

We're talking about a weapon that can leave a massive crater, will leave a massive crater, and will spread shrapnel hundreds of feet away, not the kind of precision weapon that could take out one or two people, per se.

This really stems, ultimately, Rosemary, from this disagreement between the United States and Israel. Of course, Israel continues to insist that it will go into Rafah, and we're seeing that already. The United States has made very clear that it does not support this incursion into Rafah. It says that there are other ways to go after Hamas that are ultimately more effective, and it wants to see, at the very least, a credible plan to move civilians out of the way, something that it has not seen, at least any kind of a detailed plan.

Now, a Pentagon spokesperson says that this does not affect U.S. resolve, the ironclad commitment to its security. But it is also worth mentioning, Rosemary, that today is also the deadline that has been set for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to report to Congress as to whether or not the statements or the assurances made by Israel that U.S. weapons being used in Gaza are being used in accordance with international law.

[03:05:01]

Blinken has to report to Congress as to his assessment as to whether those statements are credible and reliable.

CHURCH: Alright. Our thanks to Scott McLean joining us live from Istanbul with that. I Appreciate it.

The Israeli takeover of the Rafah crossing and the military operation nearby have sent thousands of panicked Palestinians fleeing. People are heading for so-called expanded humanitarian zones designated by Israel. But aid groups say the sites are not equipped to handle the influx.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (through translator): The situation is very difficult. The street we were on was targeted with an airstrike hitting the entire residential block.

UNKNOWN (through translator): We don't know what to do. We are going into the unknown.

UNKNOWN (through translator): I don't know where to go. I don't know where to head to. I prefer to die. Death is more dignified than this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: The medical director at Rafah's last operational hospital is calling for backup as injured patients flood the facility. This comes after a major hospital in eastern Rafah was evacuated after it was classified as being within the combat zone.

And aid trucks are backing up at the closed Rafah crossing. The head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, is urging all crossings in Gaza be reopened without delay. And I spoke earlier with Scott Anderson, the director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency Affairs in Gaza. I asked what impact the border crossing closures have had on the humanitarian situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT ANDERSON, DIRECTOR OF UNRWA AFFAIRS, GAZA: Every day that the crossings aren't open is a day of opportunity lost to bring in much needed aid for people, for the innocent civilians that have sought shelter in Rafah and other parts of the Gaza Strip.

Most importantly, right now, we need fuel. Diesel drives everything that we do in Gaza. It allows us to deliver aid to make sure water is produced and distributed for hospitals to continue to run.

We see positively that the IDF has said they will open Kerem Shalom today. The U.N. has an assessment team en route now to look at the cross-border operation space to make sure it's clear to UXOs and to make sure that we can open and operate once we have clearance. And that aid is critically needed for the people that are being displaced further so we can make sure that they have aid wherever it is they choose to sell it with their families.

CHURCH: And of course, in the meantime, Israeli military action in Rafah and the fear of what is to come has resulted in thousands of Palestinians fleeing the area. But where are they going and what access will they likely have to humanitarian aid once they relocate? ANDERSON: So we've tracked roughly 50,000 people departing Rafah in

the last 48 hours. We've seen them go to Khan Younis. Some have gone to the expanded humanitarian area of Mawassi. Others have gone to Deir al Balah.

We think as the U.N. that people should choose where they want to go and we will provide aid to them wherever they decide to seek shelter with their families.

It does create a bit of a challenge. Mawassi certainly does not have the infrastructure that you would expect. And Khan Younis is just recovering recently from an operation that took place there. So a lot of the infrastructure that we would normally rely on in terms of water generation and distribution, in terms of sewage and solid waste, all those things are frayed or broken.

And everything that we do now has to be trucked in. Moving water and moving food for over a million people is very much a logistical challenge. But we are committed to staying here and delivering aid to people. If we can get the crossing open today, I'm confident that we can get aid to the people that are most in need.

CHURCH: That is critical, of course. And aid groups, including Iran, say that the expanded humanitarian zones designated by Israel are not properly equipped to deal with the influx of fleeing civilians. So talk to us about the greatest challenge right now.

ANDERSON: I mean, the greatest challenge is that people are fleeing to an area that's overpopulated. The density of the population is too great. Mawassi area already had over 400,000 people seeking shelter there. And it's essentially a sandy area.

So there's no sewage infrastructure. There's no water infrastructure. There aren't roads that lead into it. And all this creates a problem for us to get people aid, but also for people to receive aid and just meet their basic necessities every day. It's a challenge also for health. The hospital in Rafah that was evacuated. We are trying to get health points set up in coordination with World Health Organization and other international partners to make sure that in addition to food and water, we're providing health care for people wherever they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And since I spoke with Scott Anderson last hour, the Kerem Shalom border crossing has been open to allow for humanitarian supplies to get into Gaza.

[03:09:58]

Well, the U.N. estimates about 600,000 children are currently taking shelter in Rafah. More than 13,000 children have been killed in the conflict so far, and many have lost their parents or entire families. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh meets with one orphan child who's coping with the pain of losing her parents.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Darin giggles and shrieks at the same time. The pain from bending her knees is just too much.

You promised you won't make me cry today, she tells the nurse.

Months of these physical therapy sessions after multiple surgeries has gotten her back up on her feet, starting to walk again as she turned 11.

Last time we saw Darin, she was lying injured, unconscious in a hospital bed in Gaza last October. She and her brother, Kinan, had just survived an Israeli airstrike. Kinan was quiet and confused, barely able to open his eyes. Their great aunt was by their bedside, trying to shield them from the most crushing of news.

DARIN ALBAYYA, PARENTS KILLED IN GAZA (translated): For the first time now I feel that I am an orphan. In the morning when I go to school, Mom and Dad are not there to give them a kiss before I leave.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Darin and Kinan now know. They were the only ones who survived that airstrike. Their mom, dad and eight-year-old brother, Walid, are gone. Their grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, 70 loved ones, all perished that October day.

The children made it out to Qatar for medical treatment. They have new friends. They go to school. They play and laugh.

But beneath this veneer of normalcy is the pain they share with nearly 20,000 Palestinian children who the U.N. estimates have lost their parents in this war.

Five-year-old Kinan seems oblivious to it all, but sometimes his aunt says he pretends he's on the phone to his parents.

They laugh, they smile, but they also cry, Yusra tells us. Sometimes I can't be strong anymore. I hug Darin and we cry. Then I pull myself together and tell her we have to be strong and get through this.

Yusra, separated from her own family in Gaza, has not left their side since October. She's become their everything. They now call her Tata or grandma.

Not a day goes by for Darin without thinking of her parents and all those she's lost. She interrupts her interview several times to look through their photos. It's what she does when she misses them.

ALBAYYA (translated): I miss mom's cooking, I miss mom, my dad, and my brother. Dad made me my own princess-themed room. Mom used to spoil me. When I was little and war would come, it would last a few days but this war is unlike any other war. God chose to take the people we love, the good people.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): On a call to her injured uncle in Gaza, Darin breaks down begging anyone to get him and his family out. She has to protect them, she says. It's that all-consuming fear of losing those she has left.

ALBAYYA (translated): I wish I could go back to Gaza, but what will be left in Gaza? Destruction, people are all in tents. Gaza is no longer Gaza. It is now a city of ghosts.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): For now, she's finding her own way of dealing with grief.

ALBAYYA (translated): I am not sad that my family was killed, because they are happy in heaven. They are not dead, they are alive. We don't see them but they see us.

KARADSHEH (voice-over): Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Doha.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: A big win for Donald Trump in one of his four criminal cases, the classified documents trial, which was set to begin this month, has been postponed indefinitely by a judge appointed by the former U.S. President himself. Eileen Cannon cited issues around classified evidence, saying they need to be worked out before a jury is chosen. She said the process will take until at least late July.

Now, that means this trial could conflict with Trump's two other federal cases, making it much less likely the documents case will go to trial before November, when Trump could be elected president again and his next attorney general could theoretically make the charges disappear.

Meanwhile, former adult film star Stormy Daniels provided the most explosive testimony yet in the criminal hush money case.

[03:15:00]

She spoke about her alleged affair with Trump in sometimes explicit detail, which led to a motion for a mistrial, which was denied, and then a heated cross-examination. More now from CNN's Kara Scannell.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARA SCANNELL, CN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On the stand, Stormy Daniels, the former adult film star and director at the center of the first criminal trial of Donald J. Trump.

The $130,000 deal in exchange for her silence is at the heart of the prosecution's case.

On Tuesday, prosecutors tried to paint Daniels as a credible witness, having her reveal specific details on her alleged sexual encounter with Trump and the events surrounding it. Trump denies the affair.

Meanwhile, during cross-examination, Trump's attorneys tried to undercut Daniels' testimony by attacking her motivations, credibility, and demonstrating how much she hates Trump. Daniels testified she met Trump while working at a celebrity golf

tournament in 2006. That's when Trump invited her to dinner. Later, in Trump's penthouse suite, she said they talked for two hours and Trump asked thoughtful business questions.

She explained she went to the bathroom and, when I exited, he was just up on the bed like this, in boxers and a t-shirt, she said, while demonstrating his pose for the jury.

She noted it was not in a threatening manner. Daniels said, the next thing I know was on the bed.

She described their relationship in a 2018 interview with Anderson Cooper for "60 Minutes".

ANDERSON COOPER, "60 MINUTES" CORRESPONDENT: So he definitely wanted to continue to see you?

STORMY DANIELS, PORNSTAR WHO ALLEGES AFFAIR WITH DONALD TRUMP: Oh, for sure. Yes. And this was not a secret. He never asked me not to tell anyone. He called several times when I was in front of many people and I'd be like, oh my God, he's calling. People would be like, shut up. The Donald?

SCANNELL (voice-over): During her testimony, Trump nudged his attorney repeatedly, who objected to questions and answers when Daniels suggested she didn't want to be alone with Trump again. The judge agreed and struck several of her answers from the record.

When the "Access Hollywood" tape came out before the 2016 election, Daniels said she spoke with her publicist about selling her story.

DANIELS: Suddenly people are reaching out to me again, offering me money. Large amounts of money.

SCANNELL (voice-over): She soon learned Trump and his ex-attorney Michael Cohen were interested in paying for her story in a $130,000 deal that came with a nondisclosure agreement.

Daniels testified how she wanted the deal done before the election because she was worried I wouldn't be safe or that he wouldn't pay and there would be a trail to keep me safe.

Prosecutors then turned to Daniels' 2018 statement denying a sexual affair with Trump ahead of a "Wall Street Journal" article that was going to outline their deal.

Daniels said she did not want to sign it because it was false. The day it was released, she was interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel and denied it was her signature.

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST: Did you sign this letter that was released today?

DANIELS: I don't know, did I?

KIMMEL: Wait a minute. That you can say, right? DANIELS: But that doesn't look like my signature, does it?

KIMMEL: It doesn't.

SCANNELL (voice-over): Daniels testified she purposely signed her name in a different way to tip off Kimmel.

After a court break, Trump's team moved for a mistrial, pointing to aspects of Daniels' testimony. Trump attorney Todd Blanche argued this is a kind of testimony that makes it impossible to come back from. Judge Juan Merchan ruled against the call for a mistrial. Then Trump's team took their turn to question Daniels. Trump's attorney Susan Necheles asked Daniels, Yes, Daniels responded.

SCANNELL: During Daniels' testimony, Donald Trump was taking notes. He was actively engaging in conversations with attorneys, even nudging them at times. The jurors also seemed to be paying attention to Daniels' testimony, writing down in their notepads and watching and observing the back and forth between Daniels and the prosecutor and Trump's attorney, particularly during the cross-examination.

There's no court on Wednesday, but cross-examination will continue on Thursday, and prosecutors said they also will have additional questions for Daniels.

Kara Scannell, CNN, New York.

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CHURCH: Coming up, two Ukrainian security officials charged with protecting President Zelenskyy have now been arrested, accused of participating in an assassination plot. We'll have the details just ahead.

Plus, from Texas to Maine, tens of millions of Americans are under a severe storm threat, including possible tornadoes. We'll have the latest on the forecast. Back in just a moment.

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CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Ukraine's president says Russia has launched a massive missile attack on the country. Volodymyr Zelenskyy says more than 50 missiles and 20 drones targeted infrastructure as far away as Lviv in the west to Zaporizhzhya in the southeast.

Air raid sirens blasted over Kyiv in the early morning hours. This attack comes as Ukraine marks the anniversary of Victory Day over Nazism in World War II. Mr. Zelenskyy saying Russia bringing back Nazism with its war in Ukraine. On top of all that, Ukrainian officials say they thwarted a Russian assassination plot against Mr. Zelenskyy himself. And Clare Sebastian joins me now live from London. So, Clare, let's

start with what happened just hours ago. Ukrainian infrastructure taking major hits overnight by Russian attacks. What more are you learning about that?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, this seems to be now part of a pattern that we've seen over the past two months or so, Russia stepping up attacks, particularly targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure. The Air Force saying that it managed to avert the majority of the missiles and drones. There were 76 in total, it said, that were fired at the country, various different regions.

But one of the Shahed attack drones and 16 missiles did evade its air defenses, including some of Russia's most powerful ballistic missiles. So that is the reason why we're seeing some of this damage. This morning, Ukraine's biggest private energy company, DTEK, saying that three of its thermal power plants were damaged, severely damaged, calling this an extremely difficult night for the Ukrainian energy sector. They say that this is the fifth time that their facilities have been damaged in the past one and a half months. Significant uptick in these kinds of attacks that we're seeing from Russia.

Now, of course, this does coincide, as you say, with Ukraine's celebrations of Victory Day. Significantly, Ukraine marks Victory Day on May 8th. Russia marks it on May 9th. Ukraine is using this as one of the ways that it seeks to distance itself from Russia by doing this. And President Zelenskyy, in what appears to be a counter to the rhetoric that Russia uses around Victory Day, its rhetoric around degasifying Ukraine, President Zelenskyy, in a post on social media, saying the entire world must understand who is who. The world must not give a chance to new Nazism. Rosemary.

CHURCH: And, Clare, what is the latest on the foiled Russian plot to assassinate Ukraine's president and, of course, other high-ranking officials?

SEBASTIAN: So, this was -- I mean, look, we've seen a lot of assassination attempts on President Zelenskyy over the course of this war. He himself said in an interview back in February that he had sort of lost interest after being told about the fifth time. But this is a slightly different one because we got a lot of detail from the Ukrainian security services on this. It appears to have been quite an extensive effort to foil this plot, including sort of tracking the movements of the suspects in real time. They talked about actively developing plans.

It was also seeming to indicate an extensive long-term infiltration of the Ukrainian secret service by the Russian FSB. The Ukrainian security services published a testimony from one of the suspects, a high-ranking official in the secret service, saying that he had been recruited as far back as 2014.

And I think, finally, this is concerning because it involves such high-ranking officials in the secret service. The department charged with the protection of Zelenskyy and other high-ranking officials. We're talking about two colonels who've now been charged with treason. One has been charged with preparing a terrorist attack. No comment on this as of yet from Moscow. Rosemary.

[03:25:07]

CHURCH: Alright. Our thanks to Clare Sebastian joining us live from London with that report.

Xi Jinping's whirlwind visit to Europe, his first in five years, has taken him to Serbia, where the Chinese president hopes to strengthen ties with one of his country's closest European trading partners. Belgrade rolled out the red carpet for Xi's arrival. It's the highest- level visit by a foreign leader to Serbia in years.

Xi and the Serbian president are set to meet and sign several agreements in the coming hours. Before Belgrade, Xi was in France, where he met with President Emmanuel Macron, who urged the Chinese leader to use his relationship with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Xi will wrap up his trip in Hungary.

Still to come, another month, another heat record broken, and scientists are already warning 2024 will likely be the planet's hottest year ever. Back with that in just a moment.

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CHURCH: Welcome back to "CNN Newsroom". I'm Rosemary Church. Let's check today's top stories.

A U.S. official says the Biden administration is pausing a shipment of bombs to Israel amid concerns about their potential use in the invasion of Rafah. Israeli forces took over the border crossing and have been pounding the southern Gaza City with airstrikes since late Monday.

In New York, Donald Trump was forced to listen to a former porn star testify about her alleged sexual encounter with him during the Hush Money trial. Stormy Daniels provided specific and at times explicit details that sparked repeated objections from the defense. Her testimony resumes on Thursday.

Ukrainian officials say they have stopped an actively developing Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other high-ranking officials. The Prosecutor General's Office says two officials in Ukraine's Government Protection Unit were arrested and charged with treason.

[03:30:00]

The peak of tornado season is in full force across the U.S. with watches again in effect for a number of states in the Midwest and South for the next few hours, and a severe storm threat for Wednesday stretches from Texas to Maine, affecting more than 140 million people. Michigan was hit with several tornadoes last Tuesday, which injured at least 12 people and destroyed a number of homes.

A day earlier, tornadoes struck parts of Missouri, Tennessee and Oklahoma, where at least one person was killed. According to the Storm Prediction Center, there's now been at least one tornado report every day in the U.S. for 13 straight days, roughly 300 were reported last month, the second most on record.

Heavy rain and flooding continues to batter Kenya, leading to eight more deaths on Tuesday. Overall, almost 250 people have been killed there after weeks of intense rainfall, with 75 still missing. More than 240,000 people have been displaced. Meanwhile, the death toll from flooding in Brazil is now up to 90, with more than 130 people missing. The flooding has caused landslides and destroyed roads and bridges. Brazil's president called on Congress to declare a public emergency.

Well last month broke yet another global heat record, the warmest April ever according to Copernicus, the E.U.'s climate monitoring service. That's now 11 straight months of record heat, and already it looks like we'll see the hottest year on record for the second straight year. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Here's what the globe looked like from the Copernicus climate change service for April of 2024. It was the warmest April ever on record, and now we have been month to month to month records for 11 straight months in a row.

Next month will likely be one full year. But this is disturbing. Still 1.58 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Trying to keep that number below 1.5. Zero. And that just hasn't happened. And it hasn't happened since July of last year.

This is the 11th month in a row where the global temperatures have exceeded any other year on record. So way up there. And same story for the warmest sea surface temperatures on record globally. Not everywhere is warm. There are some cooler spots, but with the El Nino in the Pacific and also the very hot areas here in the Atlantic Ocean, yes, the warmest sea surface temperatures globally that we've ever had.

This red zone right here, and mainly right up in here, the development region for Atlantic hurricanes. The warmest it has ever been for this date. Not the warmest it's going to be in July or August, but we're already starting out very, very warm. In fact, warm enough to probably equal June or July, already into hurricane season, although we haven't had any tropical cyclones here in the Atlantic Ocean yet. But that is likely to come.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: Richard Steiner is a marine biologist and conservation scientist. He joins us now from Anchorage in Alaska. Appreciate you being with us.

RICHARD STEINER, MARINE BIOLOGIST AND CONSERVATION SCIENTIST: Hello, it's my pleasure. Thanks. CHURCH: So we have reported on recent global flooding disasters in Kenya, Brazil, China, Pakistan, Dubai, Oman, and the United States with climate change proving to be the major driving force, as well as seasonal and El Nino weather patterns. How bad could this get? And is this the new norm?

STEINER: Yeah, these dire observations just keep piling up, don't they? They just keep coming in, and we connect the dots between the scientific observations, and it's a pretty clear picture we're living in a planetary catastrophe right now.

We have to get used to these extreme weather events. They're the way the world is going to be for the next several decades, and unfortunately it's going to get worse before it gets better.

But that's our job, is to make it better. There are, you know, with El Nino events on top of global warming, as your lead-up piece just said there, 1.5 degrees C over pre-industrial levels. If you recall, during the Paris Agreement in 2015, that's the level they said we needed to keep global warming below. We're already there.

Things are going to get worse again. These massive amounts of water that evaporates from this warmer sea surface into the atmosphere comes down in various locations. With the El Nino event, a lot of it's coming down in the southern United States and in places like Dubai and other places in Africa. And other places have these crippling droughts, like the Horn of Africa in southern Africa and places like this.

[03:35:01]

So it's manifest many times throughout the world, this incredible amount of heat and water vapor that's come up into the atmosphere from the warmer conditions.

CHURCH: Right, and what impact are these extreme weather conditions having on animal and plant life across our planet?

STEINER: Yeah, certainly there's impacts on human civilization, right? Hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of damage caused by storm events and flooding and drought and starvation. Thousands of people are dying every year.

The ecological impacts are extraordinary, particularly in the oceans. We're a terrestrial primate. We don't see what's going on in the oceans very much, but the warmest ocean temperatures in human history we're experiencing right now.

Massive coral bleaching in some of these extraordinary coral reef systems. Enormous amount of dislocation of marine species. Fishery failures. We're losing Arctic and Antarctic sea ice at a record pace with enormous ecological consequences for marine mammals here in the Arctic that depend on sea ice. So the ecological impacts of this are dire.

And unfortunately, we have governments and certain political parties that are still in this delusional mode and pretending this isn't happening. It's like the deer in the headlights of an oncoming train. It is happening, and we can't be paralyzed. We have to act. So the impacts are enormously consequential both for human civilization and for the planet, so we need to get with it.

CHURCH: Right. So you say we need to act. How do we need to adapt to a changing climate that's destroying essential infrastructure, people's homes, and sometimes even their lives and are we doing enough, do you think? It sounds like you don't think we are, to cope with this extreme rain and catastrophic flooding across the planet.

STEINER: No, we're not. And certainly the adaptation piece of the puzzle is something we have not gotten right either.

The mitigation part, trying to reduce carbon loading into the atmosphere, you know, every year we have increased, almost, we have increased carbon dioxide equivalent concentrations in the global atmosphere. Last year we released 38 to 40 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent, so we're still increasing our emissions.

On the adaptation side, what you just mentioned, clearly we have to do, these are engineering solutions. Basically, we have to do better at building climate-resilient urban communities and rural communities, flood-resistant, wildfire-resistant, drought-resistant, better access to fresh water, heat-resistant.

Heat stress is going to be killing thousands of people, it already has throughout the world, so we need to be very serious about investing in climate adaptation for these extreme weather events, which are only going to increase in frequency and severity in the near future.

And, I might mention, this is a job for governments. Governments have to step up and look out for the welfare of their people. We have two very critical international meetings coming up later this year in November. One is the G20 in Rio, a group of 20 industrialized nations, and the other is the U.N. Climate Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Both of these are happening at the same time, in November, just after the US presidential election, and these two conferences, international global conferences, are in planning stages right now. They need to do away with fossil fuel subsidies and agree, very importantly, and they agree on a global minimum carbon tax. They agreed on a global minimum corporate tax a few years ago. They need to get with a carbon tax. We can fix this. Governments know how to do it. They just need to do it.

CHURCH: Alright, all very sobering. Richard Steiner, many thanks for joining us, and we'll be right back.

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[03:40:00]

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Pro-Palestinian protesters on U.S. campuses now have support from rapper Macklemore. He released a new song called "Hind's Hall". Take a listen.

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The song also slams the music industry for being, quote, complicit in their platform of silence. The song is named after a building at Columbia University, which students recently occupied and renamed in honor of a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza. Macklemore, known for his hits like "Thrift Shop", has also been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ plus community, while also criticizing social issues like poverty and consumerism.

And I want to thank you for your company this hour. I'm Rosemary Church. Have yourselves a wonderful day. "Marketplace Middle East" is next. Then "CNN Newsroom" returns with Max Foster at the top of the hour. Do stay with us.

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