Tesla sales across Europe plunged by half last month even as growth in the electric car market picked up pace
LONDON — Tesla sales across Europe plunged by half last month even as growth in the electric car market picked up pace, according to data released Tuesday.
The numbers are the latest indication of how much the Tesla brand is suffering because of the backlash against billionaire CEO Elon Musk over his far-right views.
Sales of Tesla vehicles in 32 European countries tumbled 49% to 7,261 in April from 14,228 in the same month the previous year, according to the figures released by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA.
At the same time, sales of battery-electric vehicles by all manufacturers rose about 28%. Meanwhile, sales of gasoline and diesel powered cars slumped.
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As threats of an Israeli strike on Iran grow louder, the United States is making quiet but unmistakable moves of its own. Over the past month, Washington has quietly repositioned strategic bombers and fighter squadrons to Diego Garcia, a remote U.S. military outpost in the Indian Ocean, squarely within striking distance of Tehran.
The official rationale is force protection. But the scale and nature of the deployments have sparked speculation that Washington is laying the groundwork for potential military involvement in an Israeli-led operation, or, at the very least, sending a message to Tehran that it won’t stand in the way.
Roughly a month ago, the U.S. Air Force deployed six B-2 Spirit bombers to Diego Garcia, a third of its active fleet of nuclear-capable stealth aircraft. These bombers, capable of flying directly from the U.S. to targets across the globe, don’t require forward deployment to be effective. Which is why their presence on a remote island in the Indian Ocean is raising eyebrows.
The B-2s have reportedly been used in prior strikes against Ansar Allah targets in Yemen, though with limited strategic effect. Following the declared conclusion of U.S. operations in Yemen, at least some of the B-2s were replaced by four B-52 strategic bombers, another long-range platform associated with show-of-force missions.
But then, additional firepower arrived. An entire squadron of F-15E Strike Eagle fighter jets was flown to the base. While these jets have strike capabilities, open-source intelligence analysts suggest they were likely deployed for base defense. That assessment, if correct, underscores that the Pentagon sees Diego Garcia not just as a staging ground, but as a potential target in a broader escalation.
Meanwhile, intelligence signals point to real movement on the Israeli side. A CNN report this Tuesday cited intercepted communications and activity on the ground indicating that Israel is preparing to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. U.S. officials reportedly believe the plans are active and serious.
In April, Donald Trump remarked that Israel would “lead” any such operation. That comment was interpreted by many as a nod of support, if not a green light, from Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, has repeatedly warned that his government will not allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state.
Yet even as diplomatic channels remained open, the introduction of new U.S. “red lines” appears to have derailed progress. U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff recently declared that Iran must halt all uranium enrichment, a demand not included in the original 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Iranian officials rejected the move outright. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated that enrichment is a sovereign right and a non-negotiable issue. Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei dismissed the new U.S. conditions as “nonsense.”
And on May 22, Araghchi issued a sharper warning: Iran, he said, would take “special measures to defend its nuclear facilities” if Israeli threats continued. The statement was deliberately vague, but left little doubt that Tehran is preparing for contingencies.
In Washington, meanwhile, influential think tanks are ratcheting up pressure for a hardline approach. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) has called for the complete dismantling of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) has urged more sanctions. The Atlantic Council argues the U.S. must avoid “reviving Obama’s Iran deal.”
Simultaneously, Dana Stroul, a former Biden official now at WINEP, has argued that Iran’s current weakness presents an opportunity for military action. Her view echoes a growing consensus across Washington’s think tank circuit: that Tehran is vulnerable, and now is the moment to strike.
These are the same voices that helped shape past U.S. interventions in the region. Their resurgence now, alongside tactical military deployments and rhetorical escalations, suggests a familiar pattern.
What’s missing from the conversation is any real public debate about the consequences. Not just for Iran, but for U.S. interests, regional stability, and the American public. A confrontation with Iran would carry significant consequences, yet few in Washington have publicly questioned whether such a conflict serves America’s national interest, save for outliers like Rep. Thomas Massie, who has drawn fire from powerful lobbies simply for asking whether this is our fight to begin with.
The buildup at Diego Garcia may be interpreted as precaution. But it’s also a reminder of how quickly precaution becomes policy, and policy becomes war, especially when shaped by proxies, pressure groups, and allies with very different interests.
Wars don’t always begin with votes. In fact, they often begin with quiet deployments far from view, and even farther from the American people they will ultimately affect.
Feature photo | This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows six U.S. B-2 stealth bombers parked at Camp Thunder Cove in Diego Garcia on April 2, 2025. Though officially deployed for operations in Yemen, the presence of these nuclear-capable aircraft in striking range of Iran has raised concerns that the U.S. is quietly preparing to support a potential Israeli attack. Photo | AP
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
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The 2015 Paris agreement committed countries to keeping the global temperature increase “well below 2°C”, which is widely interpreted as an average of 1.5°C over a 30-year period. The Paris agreement has not yet failed, but recent high temperatures show how close the Earth is to crossing this critical threshold.
Climate scientists have, using computer simulations, modelled pathways for halting climate change at internationally agreed limits. However, in recent years, many of the pathways that have been published involve exceeding 1.5°C for a few decades and removing enough greenhouse gas from the atmosphere to return Earth’s average temperature below the threshold again. Scientists call this “a temporary overshoot”.
If human activities were to raise the global average temperature 1.6°C above the pre-industrial average, for example, then CO₂ removal, using methods ranging from habitat restoration to mechanically capturing CO₂ from the air, would be required to return warming to below 1.5°C by 2100.
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Do we really understand the consequences of “temporarily” overshooting 1.5°C? And would it even be possible to lower temperatures again?
Faith that a temporary overshoot will be safe and practicable has justified a deliberate strategy of delaying emission cuts in the short term, some scientists warn. The dangers posed by remaining above the 1.5°C limit for a period of time have received little attention by researchers like me, who study climate change.
To learn more, the UK government commissioned me and a team of 36 other scientists to examine the possible impacts.
How nature will be affected
We examined a “delayed action” scenario, in which greenhouse gas emissions remain similar for the next 15 years due to continued fossil fuel burning but then fall rapidly over a period of 20 years.
We projected that this would cause the rise in Earth’s temperature to peak at 1.9°C in 2060, before falling to 1.5°C in 2100 as greenhouse gases are removed from the atmosphere. We compared this scenario with a baseline scenario in which the global temperature does not exceed 1.5°C of warming this century.
Our Earth system model suggested that Arctic temperatures would be up to 4°C higher in 2060 compared to the baseline scenario. Arctic Sea ice loss would be much higher. Even after the global average temperature was returned to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, in 2100, the Arctic would remain around 1.5°C warmer compared to the baseline scenario. This suggests there are long-term and potentially irreversible consequences for the climate in overshooting 1.5°C.
As global warming approaches 2°C, warm-water corals, Arctic permafrost, Barents Sea ice and mountain glaciers could reach tipping points at which substantial and irreversible changes occur. Some scientists have concluded that the west Antarctic ice sheet may have already started melting irreversibly.
Our modelling showed that the risk of catastrophic wildfires is substantially higher during a temporary overshoot that culminates in 1.9°C of warming, particularly in regions already vulnerable to wildfires. Fires in California in early 2025 are an example of what is possible when the global temperature is higher.
Our analysis showed that the risk of species going extinct at 2°C of warming is double that at 1.5°C. Insects are most at risk because they are less able to move between regions in response to the changing climate than larger mammals and birds.
The impacts on society
Only armed conflict is considered by experts to have a greater impact on society than extreme weather. Forecasting how extreme weather will be affected by climate change is challenging. Scientists expect more intense storms, floods and droughts, but not necessarily in places that already regularly suffer these extremes.
In some places, moderate floods may reduce in size while larger, more extreme events occur more often and cause more damage. We are confident that the sea level would rise faster in a temporary overshoot scenario, and further increase the risk of flooding. We also expect more extreme floods and droughts, and for them to cause more damage to water and sanitation systems.
Floods and droughts will affect food production too. We found that impact studies have probably underestimated the crop damage that increases in extreme weather and water scarcity in key production areas during a temporary overshoot would cause.
We know that heatwaves become more frequent and intense as temperatures increase. More scarce food and water would increase the health risks of heat exposure beyond 1.5°C. It is particularly difficult to estimate the overall impact of overshooting this temperature limit when several impacts reinforce each other in this way.
In fact, most alarming of all is how uncertain much of our knowledge is.
For example, we have little confidence in estimates of how climate change will affect the economy. Some academics use models to predict how crops and other economic assets will be affected by climate change; others infer what will happen by projecting real-word economic losses to date into future warming scenarios. For 3°C of warming, estimates of the annual impact on GDP using models range from -5% to +3% each year, but up to -55% using the latter approach.
We have not managed to reconcile the differences between these methods. The highest estimates account for changes in extreme weather due to climate change, which are particularly difficult to determine.
We carried out an economic analysis using estimates of climate damage from both models and observed climate-related losses. We found that temporarily overshooting 1.5°C would reduce global GDP compared with not overshooting it, even if economic damages were lower than we expect. The economic consequences for the global economy could be profound.
So, what can we say for certain? First, that temporarily overshooting 1.5°C would be more costly to society and to the natural world than not overshooting it. Second, our projections are relatively conservative. It is likely that impacts would be worse, and possibly much worse, than we estimate.
Fundamentally, every increment of global temperature rise will worsen impacts on us and the rest of the natural world. We should aim to minimise global warming as much as possible, rather than focus on a particular target.
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By pandering to racist representations of immigration and failing to explain it as the inevitable consequence of colonialism, empire and the neoliberal global order, Starmer now shares an ideological position with Nigel Farage.
The plan to end licensed immigration by people contracted to work in the care sector will intensify the crisis in the NHS and make life miserable for people in care.
Care sector employers are upset because it hits their supply of cheap labour and thus their profits.
This illustrates a feature of 21st century immigration into capitalist countries that disrupts both Farage’s narrative and Labour’s imitation of the same.
A migration-enlarged labour force increases precisely those profits — the unpaid wages that employers retain — that would be diminished if they were compelled to train locals and pay them enough to attract a sufficient supply of labour.
A sensible strategy would be to attack Farage for his support for privatisation, his opposition to employment rights, his fawning over Trump and his works, his willingness to flog off the NHS to US corporations.
The most productive approach would be to stand up for what most Reform UK voters want and which they share with most people in our country — public ownership, higher taxes on the rich and an end to the privileges of the plutocracy.
