US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29
White House Senior Advisor for Clean Energy and International Climate Policy, John Podesta, holds a press conference during the United Nations climate change conference COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan November 11, 2024. (Reuters)
Short Url
Updated 15 sec ago
Follow

US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

US climate action won’t end with Trump, envoy tells COP29

BAKU: Washington’s top climate envoy sought to reassure countries at the COP29 talks Monday that Donald Trump’s re-election would not end US efforts to tackle global warming.
Trump’s sweep of the presidential vote has cast a long shadow over the crunch talks in Baku, with the incoming US leader pledging to withdraw Washington from the landmark Paris climate agreement.
The vote has left the US delegation somewhat hamstrung and stoked fears other countries could be less ambitious in a fractious debate on increasing climate funding for developing nations.
US envoy John Podesta acknowledged the next US administration would “try and take a U-turn” on climate action, but said that US cities, states and individual citizens would pick up the slack.
“While the United States federal government under Donald Trump may put climate change action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief,” he said.
“The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country.”
The Baku talks opened earlier Monday with UN climate chief Simon Stiell urging countries to “show that global cooperation is not down for the count.”
Things got off to a rocky start, with feuds over the official agenda delaying by hours the start of formal proceedings in the stadium venue near the Caspian Sea.
But in the evening, governments approved new UN standards for a global carbon market in a key step toward allowing countries to trade credits to meet their climate targets.
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev hailed a “breakthrough” after years of complex discussions but more work is needed before a long-sought UN-backed market can be fully realized.
The main agenda item at COP29 is increasing a $100 billion-a-year target to help developing nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean their economies off fossil fuels.
How much will be on offer, who will pay, and who can access the funds are some of the major points of contention.
Babayev acknowledged the need was “in the trillions” but said a more “realistic goal” was somewhere in the hundreds of billions.
“These negotiations are complex and difficult,” the former executive of Azerbaijan’s national oil company said at the opening of the summit.
Developing countries warn that without adequate finance, they will struggle to offer ambitious updates to their climate goals, which countries are required to submit by early next year.
“The global North owes the global South a climate debt,” said Tasneem Essop, executive director of Climate Action Network.
“We will not leave this COP if the ambition level on the finance... doesn’t match the scale at which finance must be delivered.”
Stiell warned rich countries to “dispense with any idea that climate finance is charity.”
“An ambitious new climate finance goal is entirely in the self-interest of every nation, including the largest and wealthiest,” he said.
The small group of developed countries that currently contributes the money wants the donor pool expanded to include other rich nations and top emitters.
Just a handful of leaders from the Group of 20, whose countries account for nearly 80 percent of global emissions, are attending. US President Joe Biden is staying away.
Afghanistan is however present for the first time since the Taliban took power, as guests of the host Azerbaijan but not party to the talks.
The meeting comes after fresh warnings that the world is far off track to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.
The UN said Monday that 2024 is likely to break new temperature records, and the Paris climate agreement’s goals were now “in great peril.”
The period from 2015 to 2024 will also be the warmest decade ever recorded, the UN’s World Meteorological Organization said in a new report.
The climate deal commits to keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, preferably below 1.5C.
If the world tops that level this year, it would not be an immediate breach of the Paris deal, which measures temperatures over decades.
But it suggests much greater climate action is needed.
Last month, the UN warned the world is on a path toward a catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century based on current actions.
More than 51,000 people are expected at COP29 talks, which run from November 11 to 22.


New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’
Updated 10 sec ago
Follow

New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

New Haiti PM sworn in, promising to ‘restore security’

PORT-AU-PRINCE: Businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aime was sworn in as Haiti’s new prime minister on Monday, promising to restore security in the crisis-wracked country after his predecessor was ousted after just five months in office.
Fils-Aime replaces Garry Conille, who was appointed in late May, but has spent recent weeks locked in a power struggle with the country’s transitional council over ministerial appointments.
“We have a transition with lots of work to do: the first essential job, which is a condition for success, is restoring security,” he said in French.
He said he was aware of Haiti’s “difficult circumstances” but promised to put “all of my energy, my skills and my patriotism at the service of the national cause.”
The unelected prime minister and the nine-member transitional council are faced with rampant gang violence and tasked with preparing the path for presidential elections next year.
Outgoing premier Conille has questioned the authority of the council to sack him, and the row looks set to deepen a political crisis in Haiti, whose presidency has remained vacant since the assassination of Jovenel Moise in 2021.
There is no sitting parliament, either, and the last elections were held in 2016.
The Caribbean nation has long been saddled with political instability, grinding poverty, natural disasters and gang violence. But conditions sharply worsened at the end of February when armed groups launched coordinated attacks in the capital Port-au-Prince, saying they wanted to overthrow then-prime minister Ariel Henry.
Unelected and unpopular, Henry stepped down amid the turmoil, handing power to the transitional council, which has US and regional backing.
Despite the arrival of a Kenyan-led police support mission, violence has continued to soar.
A recent United Nations report said more than 1,200 people were killed from July through September, with persistent kidnappings and sexual violence against women and girls.
Low-cost American carrier Spirit Airlines said one of its flights was hit by gunfire while trying to land at Port-au-Prince on Monday and had to be diverted to the Dominican Republic.
One flight attendant suffered minor injuries and was being evaluated by medical staff, the airline said in a statement. No passengers were injured.
Responding to the latest political instability, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged all sides in Haiti to “work constructively” together to ensure the integrity of the transition process, his spokesman said Monday.
“It’s not for the Secretary General to choose who will be the prime minister of Haiti,” said spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “What is important is that Haitian political leaders put the interests of Haiti first and foremost.”
Gangs in recent years have taken over about 80 percent of the capital Port-au-Prince as any semblance of governance evaporated.
The UN report said the gangs were digging trenches, using drones and stockpiling weapons as they change tactics to confront the Kenyan-led police force.
Gang leaders have strengthened defenses for the zones they control and placed gas cylinders and Molotov cocktail bombs ready to use against police operations.
More than 700,000 people — half of them children — have fled their homes because of the gang violence, according to the International Organization for Migration.


Flood fears as Ukraine says Russian strike damages dam

Flood fears as Ukraine says Russian strike damages dam
Updated 5 min 43 sec ago
Follow

Flood fears as Ukraine says Russian strike damages dam

Flood fears as Ukraine says Russian strike damages dam
  • Moscow’s army is now rapidly advancing in the Donetsk region and closing in on the town of Kurakhove, which lies next to the reservoir

KYIV, Ukraine: Russian strikes on Monday damaged a dam near the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian authorities said, warning nearby villages could be threatened by rising water levels.
Ukraine also said Russian attacks killed at least three people in the center of the country, with rescue operations ongoing in the city of Kryvyi Rig.
They came after the warring countries hit each other with massive drone strikes at the weekend and as the long-term future of US support for Ukraine hangs in the air after the election of Donald Trump.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dragged on for nearly three years.
Moscow’s army is now rapidly advancing in the Donetsk region and closing in on the town of Kurakhove, which lies next to the reservoir and had a pre-war population of around 10,000 people.
“The Russians damaged the dam of the reservoir of Kurakhove. This strike potentially threatens residents of settlements on the Vovcha River, both in Donetsk and Dnipro regions,” the region’s Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
“As of 16:00, the water level in the river within the Velykonovosilkivska community has risen by 1.2 meters (four feet). No flooding has been reported so far!” he posted on social media.
The dam lies in the village of Stari Terny, west of Kurakhove.
International environmental groups have warned of the devastating effects of Russia’s invasion on Ukraine’s nature.
In June last year, a massive Soviet-era dam in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region was blown up, pouring billions of liters of water downstream and flooding dozens of villages on the banks of the Dnipro River.
Kyiv said Russia, whose troops controlled the dam at the time, blew it up to thwart a Ukrainian counter-offensive. Moscow blamed Ukraine.
Dozens were killed in the floods that followed the blast, which has also caused vast environmental damage to southern Ukraine.
Russia also targeted the central Ukrainian cities of Nikopol and Kryvyi Rig on Monday.
Moscow’s shelling killed two people in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region governor Sergiy Lysak said.
In Kryvyi Rig, the home city of President Volodymyr Zelensky, a search and rescue operation was underway, with at least one dead and 14 people wounded after Russian strikes on the city.
The head of the city, Oleksandr Vilkul, said the body of a woman was pulled out of the rubble.
Kryvyi Rig has been regularly hit by Russian strikes.
The attacks came a day after Moscow and Kyiv launched record drone attacks on each other on Sunday.
Trump’s election has raised questions about the future of the conflict, with the Republican being vocally critical of United States aid to Ukraine.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed that he would end the war swiftly, without giving details as to how.
Visiting Ukraine on Monday, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that letting Russia win in Ukraine would represent a loss for the United States.
“Certainly it would not be a victory for the American leadership if Ukraine crumbles down and Putin wins the war,” Borrell told AFP on the first trip to Kyiv by a senior EU official since Trump’s election triumph.


Mozambique opposition calls for crippling protests over poll results

Mozambique opposition calls for crippling protests over poll results
Updated 6 min 24 sec ago
Follow

Mozambique opposition calls for crippling protests over poll results

Mozambique opposition calls for crippling protests over poll results

MAPUTO: Mozambique’s opposition leader on Monday called for crippling protests this week over contested elections won by the ruling Frelimo party, in power since the country’s 1975 independence from Portugal.
Venancio Mondlane, who won 20 percent of the October 9 vote according to the election authority, claims the ballot was rigged. Protests over the results have already claimed 30 lives, according to Human Rights Watch.
“We are going to paralyze all activities,” from Wednesday to Friday, Mondlane said on social media.
He asked supporters to demonstrate in the capital Maputo, the provincial capitals, along the country’s borders and at the southern African country’s ports.
He urged truckers to stop bringing in goods from neighboring South Africa to Maputo port.
President Filipe Nyusi is expected to step down at the end of a two-term limit in January and hand over to the Frelimo party’s victorious candidate, Daniel Chapo.
Popular among young voters, Mondlane, a 50-year-old former radio presenter, was until June part of the longstanding opposition party Renamo.
He then joined the Optimistic Party for the Development of Mozambique (Podemos).


ICC’s Khan: Forensic investigator now facing misconduct probe

ICC’s Khan: Forensic investigator now facing misconduct probe
Updated 31 min 21 sec ago
Follow

ICC’s Khan: Forensic investigator now facing misconduct probe

ICC’s Khan: Forensic investigator now facing misconduct probe
  • When Khan was sworn in as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, he said the court should be judged by its acts — “the proof of the pudding should be in the eating”

THE HAGUE: Karim Khan’s job as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requires a scrupulous and meticulous examination of evidence to bring cases against alleged perpetrators of the world’s worst crimes.
Now the 54-year-British lawyer faces his own probe, into allegations of misconduct reportedly against a member of his own office, that he firmly denies.
When Khan was sworn in as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, he said the court should be judged by its acts — “the proof of the pudding should be in the eating.”
And by seeking arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior Hamas figures, Khan has shown he is not afraid to take on the world’s most controversial cases.
The application followed an arrest warrant issued last year for President Vladimir Putin of Russia, which promptly slapped arrest warrants on Khan himself.
But Khan has faced down controversy throughout a career that has included stints defending Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor against allegations of war crimes in Sierra Leone.
Other high-profile clients have included Kenya’s President William Ruto in a crimes-against-humanity case at the ICC that was eventually dropped, and the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, Seif Al-Islam.
Asked about “crossing the floor” — working as both prosecutor and defense — Khan told specialist publication OpinioJuris that it helps lawyers stay “grounded.”
It also prevents “corrosive traits such as thinking that defense counsel is the devil incarnate or that as a prosecutor you are doing ‘God’s work’,” he said.
Criticized initially for not acting fast enough to prevent atrocities in Gaza, Khan touched off a firestorm when applying for arrest warrants over the war.
Netanyahu called it a “moral outrage of historic proportions.” For US President Joe Biden, it was “outrageous.”
Even before Khan’s application, senior US Republicans penned a letter threatening to bar him and his family from the United States, ending ominously “you have been warned.”
But Khan told CNN: “This is not a witch hunt. This is not some kind of emotional reaction to noise... It’s a forensic process that is expected of us as international prosecutors.”

Born in Scotland, Khan was educated at the private Silcoates School in northern England, before studying undergraduate law at King’s College, London.
His father was Pakistani, his mother British and he is a member of the minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect, sometimes sprinkling his speeches with “inshallah” (God Willing).
Called to the bar in 1992, he went on to cut his teeth in international law at the former Yugoslav and Rwandan war crimes courts from 1997 to 2000.
He later represented survivors and relatives of victims of the 1970s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia at its UN-backed court in the late 2000s.
His other roles have included a stint at The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, set up to bring to justice the killers of Lebanese ex-PM Rafic Hariri in 2005.
More recently, he headed the UN special probe into Daesh group crimes and called for trials like those at Nuremberg of Nazi leaders.
Initially absent from a list of candidates for the top ICC prosecutor job, Khan was added reportedly at the insistence of the Kenyan government.
The ICC selection panel described him as a “charismatic and articulate communicator who is well aware of his achievements.”
“I did apply because I thought I could do the role. If the Search Committee thought this was arrogance, then I’m guilty as charged,” Khan said.
In his speeches, he is forthright with a strong command of oratory, sprinkled with dashes of British humor.
“From what I’ve observed, Karim Khan seems like a no-nonsense lawyer, which I quite respect,” Melanie O’Brien, visiting professor in international law at the University of Minnesota, told AFP.
An ICC prosecutor “has to have a certain fortitude because you know that you are going to be up against people who don’t agree with you and don’t agree with the court generally,” she added.
 


Taliban eye aid at their first UN climate talks since 2021 takeover

Taliban eye aid at their first UN climate talks since 2021 takeover
Updated 55 min 20 sec ago
Follow

Taliban eye aid at their first UN climate talks since 2021 takeover

Taliban eye aid at their first UN climate talks since 2021 takeover
  • The Afghan delegation is in Baku as “guests” of the hosts, not as a party directly involved in the negotiations

BAKU: The first Afghan official to attend UN climate talks since the Taliban came to power told AFP Monday that his country hopes to benefit from a global finance deal under negotiation at COP29 in Baku.
Heading a three-person team, former Taliban negotiator Matiul Haq Khalis stood out in the bustling halls of the conference in Azerbaijan’s capital where delegates from nearly 200 countries began two weeks of talks.
The Taliban-led government, which is not internationally recognized, tried and failed to attend the previous COP (Conference of the Parties) meetings held in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Khalis, director general of Afghanistan’s National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA), said his team was invited to attend the talks by Azerbaijan’s ecology minister and COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev.
The Afghan delegation is in Baku as “guests” of the hosts, not as a party directly involved in the negotiations.
“I really appreciate” Babayev’s invitation and the Azerbaijani government’s facilitation of visas, said Khalis, son of prominent jihadist figure Mawlawi Yunus Khalis.
His delegation, he told AFP through an interpreter, aims to “deliver the message ... to the world community that climate change is a global issue and it does not know transboundary issues.”
With Afghanistan among the countries most vulnerable to global warming, the Taliban have argued that their political isolation should not bar them from international climate talks.
Khalis said COP29 participants should take into consideration vulnerable countries such as Afghanistan, which are most affected from the effects of climate change, “in their decisions.”
The Taliban treatment of women, however, could be controversial at climate conferences where gender rights always play a part of the discussions.
“Afghan people, especially the most vulnerable, urgently need support from climate finance to recover and adapt,” climate activist Harjeet Singh told AFP.
“However, as the Taliban government seeks to engage in the international process, it is essential that they respect and promote universal fundamental rights — particularly women’s rights within the country,” he said.
Women and children in particular “are bearing the brunt” of climate change, Sanjay Vashist, director of the Climate Action Network South Asia (CANSA) told AFP.
While the Taliban are barred from the negotiations, “the world cannot abandon the people of Afghanistan who are suffering from the triple whammy of the climate crises, gross human rights violations and extreme poverty,” Vashist said.
Asked about the gender issue, Khalis told AFP that the implementation of climate change projects “boost” women as well.
Azerbaijan’s COP29 presidency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the invitation.
Azerbaijan reopened its embassy in Kabul in February this year, though it has not officially recognized the Taliban government.
Developed countries have committed to providing $100 billion per year in climate finance through 2025 to help developing nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean their economies off fossil fuels.
Developing nations are calling for trillions of dollars, but Babayev said Monday a more “realistic goal” was somewhere in the hundreds of billions.
“Our people in Afghanistan also should access” such funds “as a right (over) climate change,” Khalis said, describing it has his country’s “main expectation” at COP29.
Among the poorest countries in the world after decades of war, Afghanistan is particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, which scientists say is spurring extreme weather.
Drought, floods, land degradation and declining agricultural productivity are key threats, the UN development agency’s representative in Afghanistan, Stephen Rodriques, said in 2023.
Flash floods in May killed hundreds and swamped swaths of agricultural land in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of people depend on farming to survive.
Khalis said Afghanistan was seeking to attend next year’s climate summit in Brazil as an official party to the talks.
“We are very interested to be as a party in the COP30 in Brazil,” he said.
“This is the right of the people, the climate justice for the people that’s actually most vulnerable communities to the impact of climate change.”