At least 123 oil and gas bosses and staff invited as ‘guests’ by Azerbaijani government and given host country badges, the Guardian has learned
According to an interesting piece in the Africa Report, African countries at Cop are wary of alienating China.
But this year, the main issue at stake in the negotiations is the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). In the jargon of climate finance, this is the amount that developed countries will have to provide to vulnerable countries to help them adapt to climate change.
When they signed the Paris Agreement in 2015, the developed countries undertook to allocate $100bn a year from 2020 onwards – via loans and grants – to finance projects that enable developing countries to adapt to climate change (rising sea levels, drought, etc.) or help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This amount was not reached until 2022, but is due to be renegotiated upwards this year.
The developed countries are also lobbying to broaden the base of contributing countries to include the “new polluters”: China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others. “The African Group will not be supporting this proposal, as it is too sensitive and we don’t want to alienate China,” says an African negotiator.
The African countries are also members of the G77, the group of developing countries to which China belongs.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
11/15/2024 - 01:48
11/14/2024 - 21:53
Schools ordered to close in Delhi and Punjab province as neighbouring countries battle dangerous air pollution
India’s capital, Delhi, has ordered all primary schools to cease in-person classes until further notice while Pakistan’s Punjab province has declared a health emergency, banning construction, shutting schools for another week and moving universities online, as both countries battle an air pollution crisis.
Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently tops world rankings for air pollution in winter, which is estimated to reduce life expectancy for the capital’s residents by up to seven years.
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11/14/2024 - 21:24
Baby spiders collected from egg sacs via Australian Reptile Park’s yearly callout are vital to creating lifesaving antivenom
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Hunting for potentially deadly, silky spider burrows in the back yard may not be on every Sydneysiders’ bucket list.
But that’s the request of the Australian Reptile Park (ARP) as breeding season begins for funnel-webs, encouraging residents to search shoes, piles of laundry, pools and garden debris for spiders and their egg sacs.
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11/14/2024 - 19:01
Future UN conferences should only be held in countries that show support for climate action, urge influential group
Over 1,700 coal, oil and gas lobbyists granted access to Cop29, says report
Future UN climate summits should be held only in countries that can show clear support for climate action and have stricter rules on fossil fuel lobbying, according to a group of influential climate policy experts.
The group includes former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, the former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and the prominent climate scientist Johan Rockström.
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11/14/2024 - 19:01
Fossil fuel-linked lobbyists outnumber delegations of almost every country at climate talks in Baku, analysis finds
Cop summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’, say leading climate policy experts
At least 1,773 coal, oil, and gas lobbyists have been granted access to the United Nations climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, a new report has found, raising concerns about the planet-heating industry’s influence on the negotiations.
Those lobbyists outnumber the delegations of almost every country at the conference, the analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition shows, with the only exceptions being this year’s host country, Azerbaijan, next year’s host Brazil, and Turkey.
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11/14/2024 - 16:14
Forests provide biodiversity, ecosystem functions, income and much more. How can these diverse and seemingly diverging demands be met? An international research team addressed this question by analyzing the effects of enriching beech forests in Germany with commercially valuable native (to mountainous regions of Europe) and non-native conifer species, in this case, the Norway spruce and Douglas fir, respectively.
11/14/2024 - 13:02
Fifty years of change on iconic limestone pavements has revealed mixed fortunes for one of the most distinctive landscapes in the UK. The findings, which reveal large changes since the 1970s, are from the first national assessment in half a century of plants and vegetation in Britain's rare and iconic limestone pavements.
11/14/2024 - 12:58
Changing how land-use subsidies are implemented would give UK taxpayers better value for money and improve chances of meeting environmental targets such as Net Zero.
11/14/2024 - 12:57
Thanks to the consistent and focused efforts of researchers and conservationists to save, then reintroduce, mountain yellow-legged frogs to lakes in Yosemite National Park, their populations are again thriving.
11/14/2024 - 12:04
When infestations affect Notting Hill billionaires, it reminds you that it’s the little winged bastards who truly own this city
While reading of the case of the super-rich couple suing the previous owners of their west London mansion over its moth infestation, one particularly detail prompted warm memories. Iya Patarkatsishvili and Yevhen Hunyak had to tip away glasses of wine after discovering moths floating in them, Hunyak told the court. Ah yes, I thought, I too have found a moth taking a little dip in my tipple, though I’ll admit that I simply fished him out rather than waste a glass. Worse, mine only contained Tesco’s finest wine, as opposed to, you know, the world’s.
Moths, it seems, pay no attention to social class. Whether you are a lowly renter in a poky flat, such as I, or the daughter of a Georgian billionaire; if you live in London, they are coming for you. Moths, like mice in the tube, are simply a fact of living in this city, so commonplace as to be almost unremarkable. Even when waging daily battle against them, you sort of forget about them; their soft fluttering wings are a kind of inaudible mood music, until someone who has recently moved here says, “What’s with all the moths?”, and you remember the bastards that truly own this city.
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author
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