Award-winning photos from around the world

Submerged Field: Colombian photographer Camilo Diaz captured this moment during the European Junior Championship of Underwater Rugby in 2016. “The Colombian national team is immersed in white, gray, and black, fighting together for the ultimate position,” says Diaz. “The volume of water suggests a calm while the surface gives constant chaos. It is in this scenario that the South American team is named youth world champion winners in Norway.”
Copyright: © Camilo Diaz, Colombia, 1st Place, Open, Motion, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Oculus: British photographer Tim Cornbill was awarded best architecture photo for this shot taken in Berlin. “Having just arrived in Berlin on a bright summer’s day, my wife and I decided to take a morning walk along the River Spree. We soon came across a large concrete building, and I was immediately struck by its geometry and scale,” says Cornbill.
Copyright: © Tim Cornbill, United Kingdom, 1st Place, Open, Architecture, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Halloween Protagonists: This reveler at last year’s Halloween parade in New York City might not be the most original cosplayer, but he allowed Greek photographer Constantinos Sofikitis to take the best street photography picture at 2017 Sony World Photography Awards.
Copyright: © Constantinos Sofikitis, Greece, 1st Place, Open, Street Photography, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Borderline: Named the best nature photo this year, Japanese photographer Hiroshi Tanita describes his photo as “the boundary line between blue and white, ice and snow which appeared in the pond to which thin ice came into winter.”
Copyright: © Hiroshi Tanita, Japan, 1st Place, Open, Nature, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

#3 Hearth: The Open competition’s enhance category celebrates the best images that have been technically manipulated. Lise Johansson’s “#3 Hearth” is part of a series that explore the notion of home. Johansson says, “The inspiration for the work came from the personal experience of returning to Denmark after many years of living abroad, realizing that I lost the warm sense of belonging I once used to have.”
Copyright: © Lise Johansson, Denmark, 1st Place, Open, Enhanced, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Sunrise at Sea: “Not necessary to have money to travel by sea. Just use your imagination! Fabric and paper is all you need,” says Sergey Dibtsev, winner of the competition’s still life category.
Copyright: © Sergey Dibtsev, Russian Federation, 1st Place, Open, Still Life (open), 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

National Awards: A sub-category of the Open competition, the National Awards honors the best photographers from 66 countries participating in the competition. Nepal is one of the new participating countries this year. Ajay Maharjan’s “The Believers,” depicting a Nepalese Hindu youth during Krishna Janmashtami festival at Bhaktapur, Nepal, won third place (Nepal).
Copyright: © Ajay Maharjan, Nepal, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Chestnut Avenue: AleÅ¡ Komovec took this picture during his first visit to South Moravia, Czech Republic. It was awarded third place (Slovenia). “I knew about this place from the internet — it’s one of the most photographed places in the area, but it was really a surprise for me, when, after a half night drive and two hours of sleep, I woke up on this location. The light, weather and everything was perfect that morning.”Copyright: © AleÅ¡ Komovec, Slovenia, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Far From Gravity: This staged shot taken by Alex Andriesi was named the top photo in Romania this year. He describes the photo as his “cinematic dreams.”
Copyright: © Alex Andriesi, Romania, 1st Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Sleeping Beauty: “During a game drive in Lake Nakuru national park in September 2016 we noticed this lioness on a tree,” says Deveni Nishantha Manjula, this year’s best Sri Lankan photographer.
Copyright: © Deveni Nishantha Manjula, Sri Lanka, 1st Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

The Wanderer: A stroll on a foggy night can be rewarding. In this case, Hendrik Mändla went home with third place in the National Awards (Estonia).
Copyright: © Hendrik Mändla, Estonia, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

The Glass Castle: This picture, which won third place in the National Awards (Russia), was taken in a modern residential complex in Moscow.
Copyright: © Ivan Turukhano, Russian Federation, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Maasai Morning Ritual: “In Magadi, which is in the southern part of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, Maasai Morans sometimes wake up in the morning to a cold beer before heading out to tend their cows near the lake. This is due to the long distance they must sometimes travel from where they live to where grass and water is. It’s a sort of early “pick-me-up” to get the day rolling,” says Joseph Were, who came third in the National Awards (Kenya).
Copyright: © Joseph Were, Kenya, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Tabular Iceberg: Josselin Cornou came first in the National Awards (France) with this picture taken during an expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula. Cornou says, “On our way to the 66th parallel south, our boat was navigating in silence through 30 meters (100 feet) high tabular icebergs that were once part of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Those mesmerizing structures were displaying subzero icy corridors, forming a highly photogenic gargantuan maze.”
Copyright: © Josselin Cornou, France, 1st Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Fisherman: Khalid Alsabat of Saudi Arabia photographed this scene at sunrise when he was staying in Yangzhou, China. “The elderly Chinese fisherman in his traditional clothes pushed his bamboo boat into the water, carrying with him a fishing net, a light, and two cormorants,” Alsabat says.
Copyright: © Khalid Alsabat, Saudi Arabia, 1st Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Wanaka Tree: Linda Cutche of New Zealand tasked herself with a challenge to frame the famous tree in Lake Wanaka in a unique way. “Although this scene had been photographed by many, I was artistically challenged to take my own version. The idea was to go on an early morning venture and get a good spot before the sun rose, capturing the glory of an amazing sunrise showering the tree in a golden light.”
Copyright: © Linda Cutche, New Zealand, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Local Train: Coming third in the Bangladesh category is this scene captured by Moin Ahmed at Tongi Railway Station.
Copyright: © Moin Ahmed, Bangladesh, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Synced: Nadia Aly of the United States took this photo of Gentoo penguins, hunting in the icy cool waters of Antarctica. It was the third best shot taken by an American photographer this year. “It’s incredibly interesting to see how synchronized they are with their movements and breaths, as they glide throughout the ocean,” says Aly.
Copyright: © Nadia Aly, United States of America, 3rd Place, National Awards, 2017 Sony World Photography Awards

Top 8 credit cards for excellent credit

*Editorial Note: This content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuer. Any opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the author’s alone, and may not have been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuer. This site may be compensated through the credit card issuer Affiliate Program.

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Trump puts China in charge of the future

Saying that it would “start a new era of production and job creation,” Trump signed a sweeping executive order Tuesday scrapping much of Barack Obama’s climate legacy.

Some analysts have expressed concern this could enable Beijing — the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases — to water down its own commitments, but others say it is more likely China will step into a leading role in the vacuum left by Washington.

“China now finds itself in the unenviable position of being world leader on climate change, thanks to Trump’s willfully blind irresponsibility,” Mark Lynas, a fellow at the Alliance for Science at Cornell University, wrote for CNN Opinion.

Speaking Wednesday, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang said the country will “continue to work with relevant parties for enhanced dialog and cooperation, hand-in-hand to manage climate change, to promote efforts to put the global economy on a green and low carbon path, in order to pass on a better future to the generations to come.”

New order

While Trump’s actions may force Beijing into a leadership role, it will not be one for which it is unprepared.

“There has been an embracing of environmental issues generally in China over the last few years,” said Matthew Evans, dean of science at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).

“China is increasingly taking its position on the world stage (as) an economic superpower in its own right.”

Speaking in New York last week, China’s ambassador to the UN Liu Jeyi said “whatever the vicissitudes of the international situation… China remains steadfast in its ambition to reinforce actions in responding to climate change.”

Liu said China is committed to “reducing carbon intensity by 40-45% in 2020 compared with 2005 and reaching the peak of carbon emissions by 2030 or even earlier.”

Carbon intensity levels are measured by a country’s emissions relative to economic output. According to the US Environmental Protection Bureau, China and the US were the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide in 2011, the most recent year for which statistics are available.

“(China and the US) are moving in opposite directions on this issue,” said Alex Lo, an expert on climate politics at the University of Hong Kong.

“The Chinese government has made a lot of commitment officially … those policies and initiatives are not going to stop.”

Push and pull

The events of the past few days mark a dramatic turnaround from 2014, when, under rare blue skies in Beijing, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping announced plans for a cut in greenhouse emissions by close to a third over the next two decades.

It was a dramatic statement of intent by the world’s largest carbon polluters, and a major win for the Obama administration in bringing China on board as an equal partner in the fight against climate change.

In September 2016, the pair underlined that partnership, ratifying the Paris climate agreement alongside each other in Hangzhou.

Following the election of Donald Trump however, Beijing looks to be standing alone.

Solutions

China is already a world leader is renewable energy.

The country’s National Energy Administration said in January that China will spend more than $360 billion through 2020 on renewable technologies such as solar and wind.
China invested more than $88 billion in clean energy in 2016, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, down from an all time high of almost $120 billion in 2015, but still significantly more than the $58.8 billion invested by the US last year.

Lo also predicted that China will take major action to introduce an emissions trading scheme this year, a means of controlling pollution via economic incentives.

“China might be able to take leadership in terms of motivating other partners, particularly those countries in the Asia Pacific region to follow suit,” he said.

China is highly vulnerable to climate change, with 145 million people living in areas at risk of flooding due to rising sea levels, and rampant desertification already occurring in much of the country’s northwest.

Risks

China will not stand alone in terms of tackling climate change. The EU is another major player, albeit one hampered by political divisions over issues such as Brexit and the refugee crisis.
A report by the NGO Carbon Market Watch this week claimed that only three EU countries were currently pursuing their goals under the Paris agreement: Sweden, Germany and France.
US states such as California are also taking action, with Governor Jerry Brown vowing to forge ahead on climate policies regardless of Washington.

“If China and the EU choose to act together then I think between them they can manage a lot of this,” said HKU’s Evans.

“But if the US tears up as many of their climate policies as it’s suggesting they’re going to, that will be a loss.”

“The atmosphere is a global good. You can’t constrain greenhouse gases released in the US to stay in the US, we’re all going to suffer from them,” he added.

Another major risk posed by the Trump administration’s action, according to Evans, is that it may encourage countries to move forward on their own on matters such as geoengineering.
Efforts to hack the planet in order to slow or reverse climate change have been put forward, but critics warn they could have unforeseen runaway effects that leave the world in a worse position than before.

“At the moment there’s a moratorium on any country doing that unilaterally,” Evans said.

But for nations most at risk from climate change, “you have to wonder how much of their country they’re willing to see go underwater before they take action unilaterally to modify the climate.”