COP29: Why are countries fighting over climate finance?

COP29: Why are countries fighting over climate finance?
People arrive for the COP29 UN Climate Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 13, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 13 November 2024
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COP29: Why are countries fighting over climate finance?

COP29: Why are countries fighting over climate finance?
  • Trump’s victory in US election has overshadowed COP29 talks over expectations he will halt US climate finance contributions
  • Developing countries say specific amount needed to tackle climate change should be starting point for negotiations 

BAKU: The main task for nearly 200 countries at the UN’s COP29 climate summit is to broker a deal that ensures up to trillions of dollars in financing for climate projects worldwide.
Here is what you need to know about the Nov. 11-22 summit talks on finance.

WHAT IS THE GOAL?

Wealthy countries pledged in 2009 to contribute $100 billion a year to help developing nations cope with the costs of a transition to clean energy and adapting to the conditions of a warming world.
Those payments began in 2020 but were only fully met in 2022. The $100 billion pledge expires this year.
Countries are negotiating a higher target for payments starting next year, but some have been reluctant to confirm its size until it is clear which countries will contribute.
Instead, they are circling around the idea of a multi-layered target, with a core amount from wealthy countries’ government coffers, and a larger sum that includes financing from other sources such as multilateral lending institutions or private investors.
In the past, public money made up the bulk of contributions to the $100 billion goal.

WHO SHOULD CONTRIBUTE?

Donald Trump’s victory in the US election has overshadowed the COP29 talks, because of expectations he will halt US climate finance contributions.
That would leave a hole in any new global target that other donors would struggle to fill. Some climate negotiators also expect the overall target agreed at COP29 to be smaller, given the expected lack of contributions from the world’s biggest economy.
The US provided nearly $10 billion in international climate finance last year, less than the European Union’s $31 billion contribution.
So far, only a few dozen rich countries have been obliged to pay UN climate finance and they want fast-developing nations, such as China and Gulf oil nations to start paying as well.
Beijing opposes this, saying that as a developing country it does not have the same responsibility as long-industrialized nations like Britain and the United States.
While China is already investing hundreds of billions of dollars in electric vehicles and renewable energy abroad, it does so on its own terms.
Any COP29 deal would need consensus approval.

HOW MUCH IS NEEDED?

Developing countries say the specific amount needed to tackle climate change should be the starting point for negotiations to ensure the final target adequately covers their needs.
By most estimates, developing countries need more than $1 trillion, opens new tab per year to meet their climate goals and protect their societies from extreme weather.
Many countries have come to the Baku talks with a number in mind.
Arab countries including Saudi Arabia want a funding target of $1.1 trillion per year, with $441 billion directly from developed country governments in grants.
India, African countries and small island nations have also said more than $1 trillion should be raised per year, but with mixed views on how much should come from wealthy governments.
The rich countries expected to provide the money have not specified a target sum, though the US and the EU have agreed it must be more than the previous $100 billion target.
Some developed country diplomats say that, with national budgets already stretched by other economic pressures, a major increase beyond $100 billion is unrealistic.

WHY IT MATTERS

Climate change has accelerated. Human activities — mainly, burning fossil fuels — have heated up the planet’s long-term average temperature by around 1.3 Celsius, turbocharging disastrous floods, hurricanes and extreme heatwaves.
Countries’ plans for emissions cuts are not enough to slow climate change, and would instead lead to far worse warming.
Next year’s UN deadline for countries to update their national climate plans is a last opportunity to avert disaster, scientists say.
Negotiators have said a failure at COP29 to produce a major funding deal could result in countries offering weak climate plans on the grounds that they cannot afford to implement more ambitious ones.
Most of the world’s climate-friendly spending so far has been skewed toward major economies such as China and the United States. Africa’s 54 countries received just 2 percent of global renewable energy investments over the last two decades.

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China backs Trump’s Ukraine peace bid at G20 as US allies rally behind Zelensky

China backs Trump’s Ukraine peace bid at G20 as US allies rally behind Zelensky
Updated 14 sec ago
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China backs Trump’s Ukraine peace bid at G20 as US allies rally behind Zelensky

China backs Trump’s Ukraine peace bid at G20 as US allies rally behind Zelensky
  • China says supports US, Russia talks on Ukraine at G20 meeting
  • Says willing to continue to play a role in resolving crisis

BEIJING: China came out in support of US President Donald Trump’s bid to strike a deal with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, at a G20 meeting in South Africa on Thursday, while US allies rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Less than a month into his presidency, Trump has upended US policy on the war, scrapping a campaign to isolate Moscow with a phone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin and talks between senior US and Russian officials that have sidelined Ukraine.
Trump on Wednesday then denounced Zelensky as a “dictator,” prompting statements of support for the Ukrainian president from G20 members such as Australia, Germany and the United Kingdom.
“China supports all efforts conducive to peace (in Ukraine), including the recent consensus reached between the United States and Russia,” Wang Yi told other G20 foreign ministers gathered in Johannesburg, according to a statement from his ministry.
“China is willing to continue playing a constructive role in the political resolution of the crisis,” he added.
Wang did not reiterate the point he made at the Munich Security Conference last Friday that all stakeholders in the Russia-Ukraine conflict should participate in any peace talks.
Beijing wants to ensure its involvement in whatever deal Trump seeks to strike with the Kremlin to prevent a currently diplomatically-isolated Russia from slipping out from under its influence, and because its ties to Russia offer China an “in” with European officials worried about being frozen out of any talks, analysts say.
“By going straight to Putin, President Trump has erased what Beijing had hoped could be a key piece of initial leverage,” said Ruby Osman, a China expert at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
“Instead, China might turn its attention to discussing a Chinese role in eventual reconstruction and peacekeeping — something that would give Beijing a significantly more vested interest in European security architecture,” she added.
The Trump administration said on Tuesday it had agreed to hold more talks with Russia on ending the nearly three-year long conflict after a 4-1/2-hour long meeting in Saudi Arabia.
Russia said the talks had been useful, but hardened its demands, notably insisting it would not tolerate the NATO alliance granting membership to Ukraine.
 


The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie declines to take the stand as the defense rests

The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie declines to take the stand as the defense rests
Updated 21 February 2025
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The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie declines to take the stand as the defense rests

The man accused of stabbing Salman Rushdie declines to take the stand as the defense rests

MAYVILLE, N.Y.: The New Jersey man on trial in the 2022 stabbing of author Salman Rushdie declined to testify in his defense Thursday as his lawyers rested their case without calling any witnesses.
“No, I do not,” Hadi Matar, 27, said when asked by Chautauqua County Judge David Foley whether he wished to take the stand.
Earlier Thursday, prosecutors called a forensics expert as their final witness, wrapping up seven days of witness testimony, most notably from Rushdie himself.
The lawyers are scheduled to deliver closing arguments Friday, followed by jury deliberations.
Matar is on trial in Chautauqua County Court in western New York on charges of attempted murder and assault for the attack at the nearby Chautauqua Institution that left Rushdie, 77, blind in one eye and with other serious injuries. City of Asylum founder Henry Reese, who was appearing with Rushdie, suffered a gash above his eye.
Throughout the trial, Matar, who is from Fairview, New Jersey, was often seen taking notes and speaking with his attorneys. On several occasions while being brought in or out of the courtroom, he declared, “Free Palestine” to news cameras. But defense attorneys had declined to say whether he intended to testify.
Although Matar’s lawyers declined to call any witnesses of their own, they sought to challenge prosecution witnesses as part of a strategy intended to cast doubt on whether Matar intended to kill, and not just injure, Rushdie. The distinction is important for an attempted murder conviction.
Matar came armed with a knife, not a gun, attorneys said, and Rushdie survived the stabbing, which they noted witnesses had described as a “skirmish” or “scuffle.”
“We’ve argued from the beginning that they have not, at least in our opinion, proven any type of intent to murder,” Public Defender Nathaniel Barone told reporters outside the courtroom.
He suggested Matar likely would have faced a lesser charge of assault were it not for Rushdie’s public profile.
“We think that it became an attempted murder because of the notoriety of the alleged victim in the case,” Barone said.
Rushdie was stabbed and slashed more than a dozen times in the head, throat, torso, thigh and hand in an unprovoked attack as he prepared to participate in a discussion about keeping writers safe. He spent 17 days in a Pennsylvania hospital and more than three weeks at a New York City rehabilitation center.
Matar also faces trial in US District Court in Buffalo on a separate federal indictment charging him with attempting to provide material support to the militant group Hezbollah.


Zelensky says talks with US envoy ‘restore hope’ for strong agreement

Zelensky says talks with US envoy ‘restore hope’ for strong agreement
Updated 21 February 2025
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Zelensky says talks with US envoy ‘restore hope’ for strong agreement

Zelensky says talks with US envoy ‘restore hope’ for strong agreement
  • “Ukraine is ready for a strong, effective investment and security agreement" with the US, Zelensky said in a post on X after meeting with Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia

President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged on Thursday that Ukraine was ready to work quickly to produce a strong agreement on investments and security with the United States, saying a meeting with US envoy Keith Kellogg “restores hope” for success.
“General Kellogg, a meeting which restores hope. We need strong agreements that will really work. I gave instructions to work fast and in a very, very even-handed fashion,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
“The details of the agreement are important. The better the details are drafted, the better the result.”
The meeting with Kellogg took place a day after Zelensky and US President Donald Trump exchanged barbs as US-Russian talks got underway on ending the three-year-old war pitting Kyiv against Moscow. Ukraine was not invited to the talks.
After the meeting with Kellogg, Zelensky said on social media platform X that Ukraine had to “ensure that peace is strong and lasting — so that Russia can never return with war.”
“Ukraine is ready for a strong, effective investment and security agreement with the President of the United States. We have proposed the fastest and most constructive way to achieve results. Our team is ready to work 24/7.”
The talks with Kellogg also followed Ukraine’s rejection of an initial US proposal to develop rare earths in Ukraine.
In his comments on X, Zelensky also said his discussion with Kellogg focused on the battlefield situation, the security guarantees that Ukraine is seeking and the return of prisoners of war.
“It’s important for us — and for the entire free world — that American strength is felt,” he wrote.


IRS fires 6,000 employees as Trump slashes US government

IRS fires 6,000 employees as Trump slashes US government
Updated 21 February 2025
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IRS fires 6,000 employees as Trump slashes US government

IRS fires 6,000 employees as Trump slashes US government
  • Cuts are part of Trump’s effort to shrink government
  • Judge rules that firings can proceed for now

A tearful executive at the US Internal Revenue Service told staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired, a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that would eliminate roughly 6 percent of the agency’s workforce in the midst of the busy tax-filing season.
The cuts are part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees. The effort is being led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest campaign donor.
Musk was on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, when Argentine President Javier Millei, known for wielding a chainsaw to illustrate his drastic policies slashing government spending, handed him one.
“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” said Musk, holding the power tool aloft as a stage prop to symbolize the drastic slashing of government jobs.
Labor unions have sued to try to stop the mass firings, under which tens of thousands of federal workers have been told they no longer have a job, but a federal judge in Washington on Thursday ruled that they can continue for now.
Christy Armstrong, IRS director of talent acquisition, teared up as she told employees on a phone call that about 6,000 of their colleagues would be laid off and encouraged them to support each other, a worker who was on the call said.
“She was pretty emotional,” the worker said.
The layoffs are expected to total 6,700, according to a person familiar with the matter, and largely target workers at the agency hired as part of an expansion under Democratic President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement efforts on wealthy taxpayers. Republicans have opposed the expansion, arguing that it would lead to harassment of ordinary Americans.
The tax agency now employs roughly 100,000 people, compared with 80,000 before Biden took office in 2021.
Independent budget analysts had estimated that the staff expansion under Biden would work to boost government revenue and help narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits.
“This will ensure that the IRS is not going after the wealthy and is only an agency that’s really focused on the low income,” said University of Pittsburgh tax law professor, Philip Hackney, a former IRS lawyer. “It’s a travesty.”
Those fired include revenue agents, customer-service workers, specialists who hear appeals of tax disputes, and IT workers, and impact employees across all 50 states, sources said. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.
The IRS has taken a more careful approach to downsizing than other agencies, given that it is in the middle of the tax-filing season. The agency expects to process more than 140 million individual returns by the April 15 filing deadline and will retain several thousand workers deemed critical for that task, one source said.
The Trump administration’s federal layoffs have focused on workers across the government who are new to their positions and have fewer protections than longer-tenured employees.

WAITING FOR DISMISSAL EMAIL
At the agency’s Kansas City office, probationary workers found all functions had been disabled on their computers except email, which would deliver their dismissal notices, said Shannon Ellis, a local union leader.
Ellis said she expects around 100 workers to be fired by the end of the day.
“What the American people really need to understand is that the funds that are collected through the Internal Revenue Service, they fund so many programs that we use every day in our society,” Ellis told Reuters.
The White House has not said how many of the nation’s 2.3 million civil-service workers it wants to fire and has given no numbers on the mass layoffs. Roughly 75,000 took a buyout offer last week.
The campaign has delighted Republicans for culling a federal workforce they view as bloated, corrupt and insufficiently loyal to Trump, while also taking aim at government agencies that regulate big business — including those that oversee Musk’s companies SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink.
“I think our objective is to make sure that the employees that we pay are being productive and effective,” White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has also canceled contracts worth about $8.5 billion involving foreign aid, diversity training and other initiatives opposed by Trump. Both men have set a goal of cutting at least $1 trillion from the $6.7 trillion federal budget, though Trump has said he will not touch popular benefits programs that make up roughly one-third of that total.
Democratic critics have said Trump is exceeding his constitutional authority and hacking away at popular and critical government programs at the expense of legions of middle-class families.
Most Americans worry the cost-cutting could hurt government services, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday.
Some agencies have struggled to comply with the rapid-fire directives Trump has issued since taking office a month ago. Workers who oversee US nuclear weapons were fired and then recalled, while medicines and food exports have been stranded in warehouses by Trump’s freeze on foreign aid.
Some workers were told they were fired for poor performance, despite receiving glowing reviews.
Those affected by Trump’s purge face an uphill battle if they want to contest their dismissal. A board that handles such disputes has been paralyzed by Trump’s effort to control it, and resolution can take months or years.


Argentine court dismisses charges against 3 accused in death of singer Liam Payne

Argentine court dismisses charges against 3 accused in death of singer Liam Payne
Updated 21 February 2025
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Argentine court dismisses charges against 3 accused in death of singer Liam Payne

Argentine court dismisses charges against 3 accused in death of singer Liam Payne

BUENOS AIRES: An Argentine appeals court has dismissed involuntary homicide charges against three people accused in the death of One Direction singer Liam Payne, who plunged from a third-floor hotel room in Buenos Aires last year, according to a ruling seen Thursday.
Two others accused of supplying drugs to the former boy band star were remanded in custody pending the start of their trial, according to the court decision dated Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Payne, 31, had consumed cocaine, alcohol and a prescription antidepressant before falling from the balcony of his hotel room last October.
The former One Direction singer-songwriter had spoken publicly about struggling with substance abuse and coping with achieving fame at an early age.
His death prompted a global outpouring of grief from family, former bandmates and fans, with gatherings of thousands of mourners around the world.
Charges were dropped against Payne’s representative in Argentina, the manager of the hotel and the head of the hotel’s reception.
But legal proceedings will continue against Ezequiel David Pereyra and Braian Nahuel Paiz — both twenty-something employees of the Casa Sur Hotel — for allegedly supplying the drugs.
One of the highest-grossing live acts in the world in the 2010s, One Direction went on an indefinite hiatus in 2016.
Payne enjoyed some solo success before his career stalled.